上接語からみる「であれば」の多機能性 - 「である」との関連性を中心に -

Abstract

In the present article, I investigate the grammatical polyfunctionality of the preceding element of deareba. First of all, I compare deareba with its lexical precursor dearu. Deareba is not attested before Early Modern Japanese, and it is thus considered a quite new form compared with similar conditional markers such as nara(ba) and tara. The present survey confirms that the grammatical polyfunctionality of the preceding element of dearu has been accelerated owing to no. That is, the composite form nodearu lessened grammatical constraints on the distribution of dearu, as a result of which nodearu became able to select a predicate of any part‐of‐speech. Furthermore, it is observed that the contemporary deareba has wider distributions than the corresponding expression in Early Modern Japanese. In particular, the independent, sentence‐initial use of deareba, which is equipped with connective‐like functions, is not found in Early Modern Japanese. Another notable use of deareba can be seen in the adnominal modifying usage of deareba, as realized in the structure: deareba + no + noun. In this way, deareba, which originally functioned as a conditional marker, can be combined with a wider variety of preceding items in contemporary Japanese, and this course of development represents functional diversifications ranging from the connective use, the predicative use, to the adnominal modifying use.