日·韓兩言語の歷史的現在考

Abstract

Historic present form, which moves a point of time from speaking time to the past time, is used in both Japanese and Korean. This paper covers a study of historic present form in both Japanese and Korean regarding particularly on non-'ta'(タ) form, 'ta' form, and 'ta' form and non-'ta' form seen in conversations, by analyzing related examples from several novels to discuss the difference of a point of time. The usage of non-'ta'(タ) form, shown in the past point of time, is based on whether it is from experience or from knowledge, so that it is used to express the past knowledge in Japanese and Korean, whereas 'ta' form is used to express the past from experience in both languages. When the past incident is compared to the present one, however, 'ta' form is used, while non-'ta' form is chosen when there is no relevance between two incidents from the past and the present. Moreover, the main plot of a novel is often narrated in 'ta' form, and non-'ta' form is used when there are additional information. But, when such additional information is interpreted into Korean, both 'ta' form and non-'ta' form are used. In Korean, it is easy to find the usage of non-'ta' from along with time adverbs. There are frequent changes of points of time in Korean, and some says that this is because Korean values more on the point of time for the subject. Regarding ‘ta' form, which represents the present, English uses fixed point of time, while Japanese shows freely moved point of time. Korean has a mixture of both at the same time, fixed point of time - considering that speaking point equals to the judging time - and non-fixed point of time. Non-'ta' form and 'ta' form, when especially used in conversations, are used in the third person of view in both Japanese and Korean, but in the first person of view, non-'ta' form is rarely used.