The Familiar and the Unfamiliar in Omoro-sausi : The Growing Consciousness of Community Seen in the Use of "Ga" and "No"(<Special Issue>The "Inside" and the "Outside" of Medieval Japan)

Abstract

In the Nara period, the auxiliaries "ga" and "no" were functionally different. While "ga" was used to refer to objects familiar to the speaker, "no" was used in reference to those unfamiliar to him or her. Much later in the Muromachi Period, this usage was essentially unchanged, but, as can be seen in Omoro-sausi, the frequency of "ga" became greater than that of "no". This means that the consciousness of community grew stronger in the Muromachi Period than in the Nara Period.