Motives for Semantic Borrowing and Calquing from Old Chinese into Japanese

Abstract

<p>This presentation examines the metalinguistic motives behind semantic borrowing and calquing from Old <br />Chinese into Japanese. Traditionally, semantic loans and calques are said to derive from homonymy and <br />synonymy between the donor and recipient languages; however, in Japanese, no homonymy and oftentimes <br />little synonymy are observed between the two languages. Instead, semantic loans and calques are believed to <br />arise from prescribed translation practices such as kundoku, the word-by-word rendering of Chinese texts into <br />Japanese, and kun-yomi, the ascribing of Japanese native words to Chinese characters. This practice of <br />prescribed translation plays a crucial role in the historical development of Japanese.</p>