earticle

영어

This paper compares the usage examples of the topic article and the sentence-final particle "ttara" between the Meiji period and the present day. In addition, it clarifies the following points about the five usage methods: . First, the standard expression “Ａ ttara Ａ” was followed by and “Ａ ttara-nai” was followed by . Both of them went through a period of combined use of “ttara/toittaraa” then it became a single usage of “ttara”. Next, for , there was no period it was used in combination with “といったら” (toittara), and it is considered that “ttara” was used from the start. Finally, in the Meiji period (1868-1912), was the most common usage with about half of all the cases, while now accounts for about 80% of the usages. In addition, it was pointed out that the five usages shared the common feature of having situation-specific applicability on site.