earticle

영어

A ｢Toki｣ clause has various meanings and usages according to tense and aspect between the subordinate clause and the main clause compared to other temporal subordinate clauses in Japanese. This is because the verb forms appearing in the ｢Toki｣ clause are diverse, such as “Suru(スル)․Sita(シタ)․Siteiru(シテイル)․Siteita(シテイタ)”, and their temporal meaning is also expressed in various ways such as ｢simultaneity｣ and ｢sequence｣. For example, ｢Toki｣ clauses and main clause are both syntactic forms that take the past tense, but the temporal meaning may be different. Also, the semantic causal relations between the subordinate clause and the main clause are observed in both of the non-past tense and the past tense of the ｢Toki｣ clauses. In this paper, therefore, the semantic correlations between ｢Toki｣ clauses and main clauses according to the syntactic pattern and the various usages in sentences are analyzed. To this end, approximately 400 sentences with ｢Toki｣ clauses were randomly selected and examined from the scripts of Japanese novels and TV dramas. In consequence, the temporal meaning of the ｢Toki｣ clause is largely classified into ｢simultaneity｣, ｢sequence｣ and ｢reverse sequence｣. Also, ｢simultaneity｣ can be sub-classified into three subcategories. As a result, the ｢Toki｣ clause has the aspect of and depending on the presence or absence of the of the verb in the ｢Toki｣ clause, as well as the relative tense of ｢before｣, ｢simultaneous｣ and ｢ after｣ on the basis of the main clause event. In this way, the temporal order of complex sentences (taxis), verb forms, and lexical characteristics of verbs interacted with each other to generate differences in the meaning of tense and aspect for each syntax type. In addition, it was confirmed that the sentence with ｢Toki｣ clauses has not only a temporal meaning, but also a logical meaning such as ｢causality｣, ｢condition｣ and ｢rule｣ in a specific sentence.