A Corpus Study of Emotive Adjectives and Verbs of the Heian Japanese

Abstract

In Modern Japanese, emotive adjectives and verbs can be used to express the same emotions, such as kanashii and kanashimu. In the case of emotive adjectives, the agent of emotion is restricted to the first grammatical person. In Heian Japanese, the agent of emotive adjective sentences is limited to the first person, as in Modern Japanese, while the agent of emotive verbs is limited to the second and third person, contrary to Modern Japanese usage. We conclude that the restrictions on choosing between emotive adjectives and verbs in a sentence based on the grammatical person of the agent of emotion are clearer in kanbun-kundoku-tai than in wab un-tai.