2025 Volume 21 Issue 3 Pages 62-76
This paper proposes a procedure for collecting instances of dialogue and internal monologue from Heian-period Japanese prose works, namely: when a quotative clause marked by to (e.g., “-to + [predicate]”) contains two or more sentences, it is to be recognized as an actual spoken-like utterance.
A survey of examples of “-to + [predicate]” in the “Literature” genre of the BCCWJ reveals the following tendency: when the predicate denotes speech and multiple sentences are quoted, Japanese-style quotation marks (“「 」”) are used; when the predicate denotes thought or perception, where quoting multiple sentences is less natural, quotation marks are not used. This indicates that the presence or absence of quotation marks correlates with the degree of reality of the quoted utterance.
Heian-period prose works show a similar tendency. However, even in cases with predicates of perception, such as “-to miru” (‘to see that’) or “-to kiku” (‘to hear that’), where multiple-sentence quotations are rare, editors frequently insert quotation marks. Moreover, unlike the BCCWJ results, cases involving predicates of thought, such as “…to omou” (‘to think that’), often feature the quotation of multiple sentences. This suggests that it is possible to collect instances of internal monologue as actual spoken-like utterances from Heian-period prose.
