The paper deals with the aspectual forms Vteiru and Vtearu in Konjaku Monogatarishu (written about the year 1120). Their diachrony has been much studied since Tsuboi (1976), yet the difference in meaning between the two forms, especially before the Middle Ages, has not been well described. For instance, why there are sentences in which Vtearu is selected despite their subject's being animate (e.g. "Nembutsu wo tonahe-teari-keru-ni…", Konjaku Monogatarishu) has not been clarified so far. It is asserted that the selection of the forms correlates with the subject's intentionality and the spatio-temporal specificity of the event referred to, there being a marked tendency toward selecting Vteiru when both conditions are satisfied ([+intentional, +specific]). The paper further argues that these factors can explain the semantic change of these aspectual forms.

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