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The meaning of ‘yatto, youyaku’, and ‘tsuini, toutou’: Focusing on realis

  • The Japanese Language Association of Korea
  • Abbr : JLAK
  • 2024, (80), pp.165-189
  • DOI : 10.14817/jlak.2024.80.165
  • Publisher : The Japanese Language Association Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature
  • Received : March 31, 2024
  • Accepted : May 17, 2024
  • Published : June 20, 2024

정병민 1

1早稲田大学文学研究科博士後期過程

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to judge the meanings of the Japanese adverbs ‘yatto’, ‘youyaku’, ‘tsuini’ and ‘toutou’ from the perspective of realis, and to clarify how to differentiate their use. Until now, these adverbs have been treated as those indicating the length of time required or containing the element of considerable effort. However, the differentiation of these adverbs cannot be made clear by ‘length of time’ or ‘effort’. Therefore, this study first clarified that ‘yatto,’ ‘youyaku,’ ‘tsuini,’ and ‘toutou’ are adverbs that commonly express ‘realis.’ ‘Yatto’ is defined as an adverb of manner that indicates that there were difficulties in the process but it was barely realized, and ‘youyaku’ indicates that the process progressed gradually and was realized. ‘Yatto’ is named ‘difficult process’ and ‘youyaku’ is named ‘gradual process.’ Although ‘yatto’ and ‘youyaku’ have minor differences in meaning, both are treated as one group because they represent ‘the process of becoming a reality.’ When ‘yatto’ and ‘youyaku’ focus more on the state of affairs rather than its realization, they take on the meaning of ‘barely,’ indicating that the establishment of the situation was in jeopardy. ‘Tsuini’ and ‘toutou’ are defined as ‘result arrival’ that represent ‘the aspect of the result of a situation establishment,’ when the speaker has arrived at a stage (result) to which meaning is attributed. In the case of ‘tsuini’ and ‘toutou,’ it is possible to co-occur with a negative predicate. However, the co-occurrence of ‘tsuini’ and ‘toutou’ with a negative form does not indicate non-realization, but rather represents that the stage specified by the speaker has reached a meaningful phase (result), and it is appropriate to deal with it within the category of ‘realis.’ The clearest distinction between the two groups is when they are used in dependent clause of complex sentences. Conjunctions such as ‘~noni’, ‘~kara’, ‘~to’ only express the ‘process’ leading up to the ‘result’ of the main clause, and thus can only co-occur with ‘yatto’ or ‘youyaku’. For ‘tsuini’ or ‘toutou’ to be used in the dependent clause of a complex sentence, they need to co-occur with conjunctions that can be interpreted as both ‘result’ and ‘process’, such as ‘~te’ or ‘~mama’.

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