The Genji Monogatari
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The Genji Monogatari - “A Loose Sequence of Vague Phrases” ? Thomas Evelyn McAuley Ph. D. The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London ProQuest Number: 10731386 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731386 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract of Thesis In the thesis I test the hypothesis that Late Old Japanese (LOJ) is not, as has been claimed by a number of scholars, a language that is innately “vague”, but that it is capable of conveying meaning clearly. To prove this I analyse the text of the Genji Monogatari in a number of ways. I study the usage of honorifics in the text and the relationship between honorific usage and court rank. I show that honorific usage very often obviates the need for grammatical subjects and objects, and where honorifics or the context are not sufficient, the author introduces subjects to clarify the meaning of the text. Furthermore, I demonstrate that over brief sections of text, one character might be “tagged” with a particular honorific in order to identify them. Status at the Heian court was determined by court rank, and the higher a person’s rank, the more honorifics had to be used. I investigate how characters could be identified when several people of similar ranks interacted. This will show that use by the author of the category of theme as well as occasional subjects serves to identify characters. I examine the applicability of the phenomenon of switch reference to LOJ, attempting to determine how far it may have enabled the ommission of grammatical subjects, and where LOJ presents problems for the canonical account of switch reference. I examine syntactic differences between narrative and quotation, and excerpts where there are differences over where quotations begin, and cases where different characters’ quotations follow each other directly with no overt marking to separate them. Finally, I study personal reference, covering the link between characters’ sobriquets and the type of scene in which they are appearing, and the usage of personal pronouns and demonstratives in the text. 3 Table of Contents Note on Romanisation ............................................................................. ..................................7 Note on Text Conventions ........................................................................................... ,........ 7 Chapter One: Introduction 1.0 The Tale of Genji ............................. .................................... ............................................. 8 1.1 Aristocratic Society in Heian-Kyo ................................................................................... 10 1.2 Heian Writing ....................................................................................................................... 12 1.3 The Syntax of Classical Japanese.................... ................................................................. 18 1.3.1 Classical Japanese Dialects.............................................................................................26 1.4 Classical Japanese and Vagueness.............................................. ..................................... 29 1.5 Linguistic Attitudes to Vagueness .....................................................................................33 1.5.1 The Syntactic Approach ..................................................................................................34 1.5.2 The Semantic Approach................................................................................................ 36 1.5.3 The Pragmatic Approach.................................................................................................39 1.5.4 The Literary Critic’s Approach ......................................................................................41 1.6 The Meaning of Vagueness and Aims of this Thesis ................................................. 41 1.7 Problems of a Classical Text and TheGenji*s Textual History ............................ 45 1.8 Methodology ................................................................................................................... 47 Endnotes.......................................................................................................................................50 Chapter Two: Honorifics 2.0 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 52 2.1 Politeness in General...........................................................................................................53 2.2 Honorifics ................................................... ......................................................................... 55 2.3 The Honorifics of Late Old Japanese........................................................ ...................... 70 2.3.1 The Organisation of the LOJ Honorific System..., ..................................................... 72 2.3.2 Differences between the LOJ and MJ Honorific Systems........................................78 2.3.3 The Honorific Verbs Faberi and saburaFu .................................................................81 2.4 Honorifics in the Genji Monogatari ............................... ....... ..........................................83 2.4.1 Analysis of a Passage of Text ......................................... .............................................. 84 2.4.2 “Tagging” of Characters with Honorific Verbs..........................................................97 2.5 Rank and Subject Reference ....................................................................................103 2.5.1 Similar-Ranked Characters and Reference............................................................... 106 2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 112 Endnotes....................................................................................................................................... 113 Chapter Three: Switch Reference 3.0 Introduction .......................................................... ................................................................ 114 3.1 Switch Reference..................................................................................................................115 3.2 Switch Reference in Late Old Japanese...........................................................................119 3.3 Switch Reference in Sakaki ................................................................................................123 4 3.3.1 Switch Reference and Semantic Environment...........................................................147 3.4 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................149 Chapter Four: Quotation 4.0 Introduction ................................................................ .............................................. 151 4.1 The Syntax of Quotation in LOJ ....................................................................................... 152 4.2 Investigation of Quoted Direct Speech ............................................................................157 4.2.1 Quoted Speech and Context ....................................................... .........................163 4.2.2 Disagreements over Quoted Speech ................................................................... 169 4.2.3 Unmarked Speech.............................................................................................................182 4.3 Conclusion ............................................................................. ............................................... 186 Chapter Five: Personal Reference 5.0 Introduction .................... ................................................................................................. 187 5.1 Personal Reference in Heian Japan................................................................... ...............188 5.2 Genji Character Reference................................................................................................. 189 5.3 Pronouns in Late Old Japanese......................................................................................... 206 5.3.1 Third Person Reference ................................................. 216 5.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 235 Chapter Six: Conclusion 6.0 Overview of the Previous Chapters.......................................................... 237 6.1 Conclusions .................................... 239 6.2 Areas for Further Study ......... 239 Bibliography ........................................................................ 242 List of Tables Chapter One: 1. Kanbun and Wabun W ords....................................................................................15