Abstract
This paper focuses on expressions for the number of people in Konjaku-monogatari-shu, with an aim to describe and analyze the conditions of usage of the numerical expressions in old and middle Japanese. It first examines how relative frequency of Q-preposing and Q-shifting changes as time passes. It was found that the volumes in Konjaku-monogatari-shu which are influenced by the diacritical language (kanbun-tai), namely, a style used to translate Chinese into Japanese, contain more instances of Q-preposing than other volumes, while those which are influenced by Old Japanese conversational style (wabun-tai) contain more instances of Q-shifting and Q-floating. It also shows that throughout all the volumes in Konjaku-monogatari-shu, some functional differences, illustrated below, are observable between Q-preposing and Q-shifting, which is not the case in Modern Japanese. 1) The Q-preposing in Konjaku-monogatari-shu roughly corresponds to the function of Q-floating in Modern Japanese. 2) The Q-floating of Konjaku-monogatari-shu increased beyond that of Japanese conversational texts in the Heian period (Heiankana-bun).
