2021 Volume 31 Issue 3 Pages 371-383
Auxiliary words are key elements in observing expressive characteristics and stylistics of articles, and the study of diachronic changes in auxiliary words is helpful in understanding the process of language evolution and stylistic changes. In this study, we applied a statistical approach to investigate the diachronic variation in auxiliary words, and examined the correlation between these changes and stylistics. Our experiments were conducted on a diachronic corpus consisting of contemporary novels. The publication dates of these novels spanned from 1910 to 2014. First, through a phylogenetic tree analysis, it was confirmed that the use of auxiliary words changed significantly. Second, we conducted an elastic net regression, and extracted those particles that play important roles in model construction. The findings of this research point to concrete evidence for language change and offer a better understanding of the dynamicity of stylistic features in modern Japanese novels.
