形 / で / 初婚率 / 「○○スル」に

Hi,

1. I am usually unsure how to pronounce 形, in the sense of "shape" or "form", either when a standalone character or when tacked onto the end of something else. Are there any rules?


2. 本文で紹介されているもの以外に、社会問題を表してい るカタカナ言葉で、最近よく使われるものがあれば、そ の言葉の意味と社会背景を考えてください。

Does the で after 言葉 mean "among"?


3. I am having trouble understanding this graph caption:

女性の初婚率の推移 （人口１０００人中の人数）

The horizontal axis shows years, and the vertical axis is labelled 人, which I assume means number of people per 1000 of the population. There are four plots, for ages 20-24, 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39 respectively. When I add the four plots together for year 2000 I get approximately 130人. I can't think what 女性の初婚率 means that would give that sort of total.


4. This is the heading for a list of example words like 未解決, 未完成, 未使用 and so on:

三字の言葉（「○○スル」に「未」がついた言葉）

a) What does 「○○スル」に mean? I know that 解決する, 完成する, 使用する all exist, but I don't see the relevance here, or why スル is in katakana.

b) Also, why is ついた used here versus つく in a previous heading「未」がつく言葉? Are they interchangeable?

1)
かたち is the most common for single kanji. かた might be possible, but けい is rare. As for a suffix, it's basically "on'yomi + けい", "kun'yomi + かた/がた" (e.g., 正方形[せいほうけい], 菱形[ひしがた]). There are exceptions, of course.

2)
Yes.

3)
Those each numbers you saw on the graph are AVERAGE 初婚率 of each five ages, for instance, "44.88 for 20-24" means the average of 初婚率 of 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 years old women is 44.88人/1000人. Thus, TOTAL 初婚率 of 20-39 are approximately 650(130×5)人/1000人.

4) a)
「○○スル」 refers to "-suru verb stem". Katakana is used for difinition in this case.

b)
つく can mean "word that CAN be atteched to 未". Thus, 「未」がついた言葉 only refers to 未解決, 未完成 or 未使用, whereas 「未」がつく言葉 can be used also for 解決, 完成 or 使用.

Thanks Toritoribe,

4a) Is the point that 未○○ is usually (or only) used with ○○ that can form ○○する?

No. 三字の言葉（「○○スル」に「未」がついた言葉） just means "three characters words(未 + -suru verb stem)". It says that a three characters word that doesn't contain 未 doesn't belong to this group, further, even if it contains 未, when ○○ is not a -suru verb stem(e.g. 未曾有), it doesn't belong to this group, either.