思考動詞「おもう」の条件形の脱動詞化

Abstract

The basic function of the conditional form of a verb is to indicate that the event stated in the subordinate clause constitutes a “condition” that is involved in establishing the event stated in the main clause. In the usage of the conditional form of the thinking verb omou, however, there is an instance of deverbalized derivational usage that does not function to indicate a “condition.”Although preexisting studies have partially succeeded in drawing attention to the derivational usage of the conditional form of the verb omou, there has not yet been an adequate examination of the lexical and syntactical usage transformations that occur in the process of deverbalization, and of the variations in the paths of deverbalization. This present study presents the following observations. When the conditional form of the verb omou undergoes deverbalization, it becomes used as a connective particle, connective, postposition, complex sentence adverb, or sentence adverb. Along with these transformations, the word loses the lexical and syntactical characteristics that it had possessed as a verb. Meanwhile, through a comparison with the derivational usage of the conditional form of the verbs miru ‘see’ and iu ‘say’, this study confirmed that the path of deverbalization in the case of the conditional form of omou differs from the derivational usages of the conditional forms of miru and iu (although the derivational usage of the conditional forms of miru and iu exhibit common features), and share no common characteristics in terms of meaning and usage. This study was thus able to verify that there paths of deverbalization can exhibit significant variations.