What's new

かえる / 何な / 堂々たる肩

eeky

先輩
8 Jun 2010
2,431
22
48
Hi,

1. Which of 変える, 換える, 帰る and 返る are etymologically related? I would guess the last two are at least?

2. Is 何な always pronounced なんな (rather than なにな)?

3. シルクのショールを堂々たる肩に巻きつけている。

a) Is 堂々 adverbial modifying たる, and then 堂々たる modifying 肩? Is it たる as in 足る?

b) The word シルク strikes me as a very surprising English import, since presumably silk has been known in Japan since ancient times. Any particular reason why the native word is not used?
 
1)
Each of the first two and the last two have the same etymologies.

帰るとは - Weblio辞書
変えるとは - Weblio辞書

2)
Not always so.

3) a)
堂々たる is the attributive form of an adjective 堂々たり.

b)
Loan words tend to be preferred in the fashion industry, e.g., シルク than 絹, ショール than 肩掛け, コート than 外套,,, (sounds more fashionable, perhaps).
 
Thanks.
堂々たる is the attributive form of an adjective 堂々たり.
Oh. This is not familiar to me at all. Is it a one-off or an example of a regular grammatical pattern?

Also, is たり/たる separable from 堂々?
 
In addition to #1, the classical forms of the first two and the last two are かふ and かへる respectively, as in the dictionary. Also, 変える/換える and 帰る/返る have different pitch accents.


There are two different types of conjugation in (classical) 形容動詞(a kind of adjective), so-called タリ活用/ト・タル活用 and ナリ活用/ニ・ナル活用. ナリ活用/ニ・ナル活用形容動詞 changed to na-adjectives in modern Japanese.
e.g.
ナリ活用/ニ・ナル活用
遥かなる道のり(classical) - 遥かな道のり(modern)
道のりは遥かなり(classical) - 道のりは遥かだ(modern)

タリ活用/ト・タル活用
茫漠たる砂漠(classical) - 茫漠とした砂漠(modern)
砂漠は茫漠たり(classical) - 砂漠は茫漠としている(modern)

Almost all stems of タリ活用/ト・タル活用形容動詞 are Chinese compound words, and たり is originally from "a particle と + a verb あり" as same as a classical auxiliary verb たり. 堂々 can be used alone or in some compounds words (e.g. 威風堂々, 正々堂々), but thsese usages are not so many.
堂々たる and 堂々と are often treated as an attributive(連体詞) and an adverb in modern Japanese grammar, respectively.
 
Thank you for your comprehensive answer.

Do the forms that you mark as "classical" sound archaic, or are they an ordinary part of everyday language? Is this ~たり/~たる still a productive pattern, or is it only used in certain set combinations that have "fossilised" an old form?
 
Those words are basically written language, but still used also in formal speeches.
~たり/たる are an auxiliary verb, not an conjugation suffix of 形容動詞, when attached to a new stem.
 
Back
Top Bottom