Abstract

This paper examines 730 examples of auxiliary verbs indicating the past tense ‘きki’ and ‘けりkeri’ and the perfective aspect ‘つtsu’, ‘ぬnu’, ‘たりtari’ and ‘りri’ in Mubatsu-bon Lunyu Jijie volume 1 (abb. Mubatsu-bon), which is a standard glossed reading in the Medieval Japan.<BR> There are 11 examples of the past auxiliary verb ‘ki’, regardless of whether there are any factors that indicate the past tense in the Chinese original text. Of these 11, there are only 3 examples of ‘ki’ found in Shibunkai Kunten Lunyu. Further, ‘keri’ is used in 1 example only in Mubatsu-bon, but semantically, it is the case where the continuous aspect is expected to be used.<BR> The past tense auxiliary verbs are seldom used in the glossed reading of Lunyu including Mubatsu-bon. This is because the ‘historical present tense’ is used even in the case that describes the past. This is to express vividly the relevant scene, but is also related to the characteristic of the literary style of Kanbun Kundoku whereby Chinese text is translated into Japanese simultaneously to assist with remembering and memorizing the original text.<BR> There are 21 examples of ‘tsu’ (11 examples are used as perfective aspect, and 10 examples are given as emphasis), and 35 examples of ‘nu’ (22 examples are used as perfective aspect, and 13 examples are given as emphasis), 24 examples of ‘tari’ (12 examples are used as perfective aspect, and 12 examples are given as continuous aspect), and 67 examples of ‘ri’ (13 examples are used as perfective aspect, and 54 examples are given as continuous aspect). It is clarified as a result of the analysis that the aspect-related factor, which was discussed in Edwin Pulleyblank (2010), does not always appear in all original Chinese texts. Rather there is no consistent tendency as shown in the fact that Japanese auxiliary verbs of continuous aspect are used in the Chinese particles that express the perfective aspect in some examples, whereas the opposite is also found in some other examples. In terms of a succession of Kundoku, ‘tari’ shows the highest frequency rate, followed by ‘ri’. The other auxiliaries ‘tsu’ and ‘nu’ are seldom inherited.

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