The Historical Transition of “toritate” by tokitara

——In Relation to Quotations Using “to + kuru”——

Abstract

This paper clarifies the following points regarding expressions containing tokitara and to + kuru after Pre-Modern Japanese.

①In Pre-Modern Japanese, it was a sentence expressing “Quotation Type II” with the interpretation of movement. However, from the 18th century onwards, “non-movement,” which does not take the interpretation of movement and is preceded by a nominal expression, began to be used to vividly describe events occurring in one's immediate presence. At the same time, in the Edo dialect, the expression “toritate” began to be used to emphasize extreme events. Neither of these expressions carried a positive or negative evaluation.

②In Early Modern Japanese, “toritate” has become more closely associated with “contrastive topic,” which highlight subjects in a contrasting manner. It is often used in contexts where the event being highlighted is evaluated more negatively than other events. This usage is interpreted as aligning with the evaluative meaning of “negative evaluation” in Contemporary Standard Japanese.