Transitions in the Use of Bekio Conjunctions: From Ancient to Modern Japanese

Abstract

This paper investigates bekio, which is constituted by attaching o to beki, the adnominal form of the auxiliary verb beshi, from the viewpoint of its actual condition of use, chronologically, from the Heian period to the Edo period, and considers the relation of bekio to o as a quasi-conjunctive particle attached to a formal noun. Bekio had been frequently used in the Heian period, but it entered into a transition phase in the Kamakura period, and it almost went out of use in the Muromachi period. However, bekio is still somewhat in use in Modern Japanese by lexical cohesion as a form for expressing adversative relations. Whereas bekio went out of use, tokoroo appeared, and tokoroo tends to be more frequently used than bekio in Modern Japanese. It is considered that the appearance of tokoroo correlates with the decline of bekio, and that it occurred with the transformation from ancient Japanese to modern Japanese, as beshi, the conjunctive particle o and quasi-nominal phrases had declined in the Muromachi period.