格助詞「に」の意味と用法に関する研究

Abstract

This paper is a study of the meaning and usage of the case marker NI. There have been many studies of the Japanese case marker NI, but most of them are concerned with differences of usage between NI and DE, so there are few that deal with the meaning and usage of NI itself. Even such studies as do exist have been focused mainly on very limited usages such as “place”, “time”, “point of origin”, “cause”, “purpose”, “object”, etc., overlooking how widely the case marker NI is used in Japanese sentences. Furthermore, the six usages mentioned above were so simple that countless meanings of “place” were only considered as one broad category, and the meaning classification became ambiguous. Therefore, in this paper, the existing ambiguous semantic classification is re‐classified in more detail and variety to explain it easily to Japanese learners. In addition, there have been many predicate‐centered studies in which most of the semantic usages of the case marker NI are related to predicates, and the meaning and usage vary depending on how the meaning content of the predicate changes. However, in recognition of the existing predicate‐central theories, this paper considers it from the standpoint of accepting both sides because various uses also appear in the differences in the characteristics of noun phrases attached to the case marker NI.