Abstract
This paper investigates the multiple aspects of the words coined in the Middle Ages, focusing on hybrid words from ‘Heikemonogatari’, ‘Taiheiki’ and ‘Nippojisho’. Firstly, Heikemonogatari had the greatest number of hybrid words, followed by Nippojisho and Taiheike, but the number of hybrid words increased with time. Secondly, inflection words accounted for more than 70% of hybrids words from the Kamakura era to the early Muromachi era and they were predominantly verbs. However, uninflected words accounted for more than 70% in the late of Muromachi era and most of them were nouns. Thirdly, all hybrid word combinations comprise of a Japanese and a Chinese word element and hybrid words with foreign components were not documented.In addition, ‘Chinese + Japanese’ hybrid words outnumbered the ‘Japanese + Chinese’ ones, but the discrepancy between the two types decreased in the early Muromachi era. Fourthly, ‘Japanese + Chinese’ hybrid words were normally used as nouns, expect from one adverb. On the other hand, ‘Chinese + Japanese’ hybrid words were used for various parts of a speech, but the number of nouns increased in the late Muromachi era. Fifthly, although ‘the subject of human activity’ had the greatest number of hybrid words in the early Muromachi era, the hybrid words signifying ‘production and use’ underwent a significant number of changes at the end of the Muromachi era.
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