標準日本語の名詞・動詞形態論へのヒッチハイク・ガイド

要旨

Despite the large body of linguistic research conducted on Standard Japanese and the increasing number of L2 learners worldwide, there remains a lack of clear and concise explanations and descriptions of the language. This is due to both miscommunications between how Japanese and overseas scholars describe the language and by a largely entrenched L2 educational system primarily focused on helping students pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam with courses and books designed by Japanese teachers. This paper provides an up-to-date analysis of Standard Japanese nominal and verbal morphology from a modern typological perspective. Aspects of the morphology critical for L2 learning that are often left out of most courses are highlighted in a format that also functions as a “crash course” introduction to two major parts of speech in Japanese grammar (nouns and verbs) and descriptive Japonic linguistics for linguists. The nominal section covers such topics as the pragmatic function of appellative nouns, plural suffixes, and pronouns. The clear yet comprehensive description of the agglutinative verbal morphology of Japanese presents the reader with a bigger picture to better understand how to successfully parse natural discourse and produce more fluent-sounding utterances. The article concludes with specific examples of aspects of functionality key to Standard Japanese that are important to be aware of for those coming from languages unrelated to Japonic.

主題