Notes on Mk 4: 1-20
The “Parable of the Sower” is notorious for the problems it offers, problems which invite endless discussion among the New Testament students. It is generally understood that we can trace stages of compilation in vv 2b-20, which roughly consist of three clusters of tradition, namely 3-8, 11-12, 14-20. What was the order of compilation? Linguistic observations and historical as well as theological explanations lead to no one accepted interpretation, microscopic and incisive though they all are.
The writer tries in this opusculum to point out that:
(1) there seems to be no inherent necessity for connecting v. 10 to v.13.
(2) the question (erotan) of v. 10 could just as naturally be answered by vv 11-12 as by vv 14-20
(3) it is just as plausible to call vv 11-12 dominical as to ascribe it to “Verstockungstheorie.”
If the drift of opinion favours the hellenistic background of vv 14-20, the wrinter is inclined rather to emphasize the Jerusalemite origin of vv 10-12.

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Notre mémoire a pour but d'examiner, de point de vue de la linguistique ältaique, le vocabulaire mandchou-mongol-ouigour-turc, enregistre dans le grand polyglotte intitule de Wu T'i Ch'ing WenChien (fin du 18^e siècle sous le regne de lémpereur Ch'ing Lung de la dynastie de Ch'ing), et, de considérer si, dans ledit vocabulaire, un certain nombre de mots puisse servir de documents attestés pour etablir la famille des Langues altalques.

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Professor Izuru Shinmura largely contributed to the progress of Japanese Linguistics, and his talents were manifested in many fileds. Above all, he was interested in the research of lexicology, and his name is widely known as the editor of “KOJIEN”.
Modern Japanese dictionaries are generally incomplete in defining words. For instance they interpret the verb “tsukamu” using the verb “nigiru”, and the verb “nigiru” using the verb “tsukamu” reversely. But there is a sharp distinction between the sememe of “tsukamu” which means “to take hold of something suddenly and forcefully” and the sememe of “nigiru” which means “to tighten”. Japanese dictionaries do not describe these sememes of words but only list every contextual meaning of words. Such descriptions will increase to an unlimited extent, because the modification of contextual meaning of every word will be infinite. And they will not be available for understanding the possible expressions in the future. We must strive for difining the sememe of every word in our dictionaries however hard task it may be.

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“Nanshizakkai”is a manuscript of three volumes, which was transcribed by a Tongking jurubaca (means an interpreter in Malay word), Gi Gozaemon (d. 1835). This book has a charactor which is called one of the Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, and in which we find the Portuguese language used by interpreters in Nagasaki during 17 th and 18 th centuries, and also we recognize some linguistic features of Portuguese spoken among the Japanese interpreters. Of course the phase of it was different from that of some lingusitic works compiled by Jesuit missionaries in 16 th and 17 th centuries. In this book Portuguese is written by Katakana. We are able to ascertain the practical pronunciations of that time by means of that orthography. First of all, double consonants in one syllable of Portuguese were reduced to open syllables according to the Japanese syllabic type, e. g. letra>reutara, escrito>esukirito; second, two words fused into one, e. g. ja estou>jastou, de ontem>dontem, and also abbreviations were often used, e. g. alguma>goma, ainda>ain.
The word order was freely treated, e. g. Portuguese word order was arranged by Japanese order. The compiler of this book explained that the following three expressions had the same meaning: arroz um fardo, um fardo arroz.fardo um arroz
Portuguese has the complicated system of conjugations, of which interpreters, generally speaking, adopted present an preterite of Indicative. They used infinitive and present for other conjugated forms. Subjects did not always coordinate with Predicates in Person and Number. The form of Third Person, Singular of Conditional expressed more honorary than usual Imperative form. e. g.
Anda por deante. Arnie Vossa Merce por deante.
Faze corn deligencia. Faza Vossa Merce corn deligencia.
Descobri.
Descobra Vossa Merce.
This proper use in Portuguese syntax was exactly kept by the Japanese interpreters, because it has the correspondency to the sence of Japanese honorifics.
It had the special function to compound with aru after Portuguese words or sentences. Aru was added at the end of predicate or sentence, to make sure of the meaning of preceeding words. e. g. Ir templo aru. Veio arudo. Assi como imitar aprende aru. Saber de coy dearudo. Näo tern novas deyado. Meu (genitive was used for nominative) de dia denoite tern sono aru. It seems to me that it had some relations to the Portuguese verb ending, ar, at the same time, to the Japanese verb, aru.
I will, therefore find out the facts of Japanese influence upon Portuguese, at any rate I would like to point out the Japanese sentence particle, ya was added to interogative sentences, and other sentence particles, yo, do were added to imperative forme. e. g. Vossa Merce ter fome ya? Que parte veio ya? Vive yo! Escreva memoria do!

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Most of the words treated of here are commonplace ones, and have undergone quite phantastic semantic changes. It is of interest to find out the hidden meaning and cultural background, and, as I firmly believe, one of the charms of philology-into which the late Professor Shimmura initiated us-may lie herein.(Tokyo, May, 1968)

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