2021 Volume 179 Pages 139-153
This paper investigates the developmental process of the cause-and-reason conjunctive particle kara among learners of Japanese in a JSL environment using the longitudinal speech corpus C-JAS and explores the factors responsible for non-target-like use observed in the developmental process. The results of the analysis show that the developmental process of kara begins with the use of only -kara as a conjunction, and there are also examples of dropping the auxiliary verb da, which should be inserted. Next, when the use of -dakara with the auxiliary verb da begins, the omission of da decreases. After that, it became clear that the conjunctive particle kara is acquired through the excessive addition of da together with -kara and -dakara. The target-like and non-target-like free variations observed in this process are explained using the Diffusion Model. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the omission of da is produced by the only possible connection kara at that point, and that the addition of da is influenced by the problem of the plain form of the i-adjective and the spread of the acquisition of grammatical items prefixed to kara.
