他称詞に関する日本語、朝鮮語、中国語の対照研究

Abstract

This article investigates the conditions of use for terms referring to third persons in Japanese, Korean and Chinese and discusses how their occurrence is influenced by syntax and context. The frequency of use of such personal terms is shown to be highest in Chinese, lower in Korean, and lowest in Japanese. In all three languages, the introduction of a previously unknown “participant role” is conductive to the use of a personal term; and the presence of certain particles in Japanese and Korean has an effect of favoring the use of a demonstrative subject as a base for focalization and topicalization. These particles, along with the terms referring to third persons, tend to be used in cases where the reference to the third person is emphatic. Circumstances conducive to the non-use of personal terms in Japanese and Korean, are a high dependence on context, a low need to specify the object of a transitive verb, and the presentation of a passage of quotation ahead of the third person speaker to whom it is attributed.