Paper short abstract:

This presentation discusses the relationship between the notion of 'cases' found in the research of the Dutch language and the research of kakarimusubi in Kokugaku in the modern realm of grammar studies in Japan. The achievement of understanding of cases in modern grammar will show.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation discusses the relationship between the notion of cases found in the research of the Dutch language and the research of kakarimusubi in Kokugaku in the modern realm of grammar studies in Japan.

First, this study will examine how Dutch scholars in the Edo Period understood naamvallen (cases) through Dutch grammar books. Some descriptions of the Dutch scholars were observed, how they reflected on the Japanese cases was also examined, and consequently it became clear that these cases reflected the understanding of the Dutch cases.

How such research of the Dutch language influenced research of the Japanese language will be discussed further. Tsurumine Shigenobu's Gogaku Shinsho, which first introduced research of the Dutch language, treated 'cases' as linguistic phenomena seen in the categories of indeclinable and declinable words. Comparing those descriptions with the Dutch grammar books and Motoori Nobunaga's Kotoba no Tamano-o, it became clear that they incorporated both research of the Dutch language and Kakarimusubi Studies from Kokugaku for studying 'cases'. In other words, Tsurumine equated 'case inflection', a phenomenon in Dutch grammar books, with the addition of 'auxiliaries' to 'indeclinable' and 'declinable' words and word inflection found in the Japanese language. This is the reason that all case particles used for the subject, and the complement, participles and auxiliary verbs connected to declinable words (predicates) were captured as 'cases' en bloc. On the other hand, the concepts of 'moto' and 'sue' in Kokugaku were captured as predicates of sentences and components other than predicates. In addition, syntactic elements that form the sentences, 'kun', 'shin', and 'min'were extracted, using the idea of case classification such as the 'nominative' and 'cases other than nominative' in Dutch grammar books.

Finally, the case in Yamada Yoshio's Nihon-bumpo-ron, which developed the leading theory of modern grammar in the Meiji Period will also be discussed.

On the basis of the above inferences, the achievement of understanding of cases in modern grammar will be shown.