한자어·외래어 페어의 유의어 분석

An Analysis of Kango-Gairaigo Synonyms: Focussing on Setsuzoku and Akusesu

Recent years have seen the growing number of western loanwords that are in a synonymous relation with the pre-existing Japanese native words due to globalisation. Whilst this phenomenon enriches the system of the Japanese language, it may be conceived of as a burden for the learners of Japanese because they need to semantically classify a number of words and memorise them. The present article analyses the characteristics of akusesu ‘access’ and setsuzoku ‘access,’ a pair of a Western loanword and a Japanese native word. The data were collected from the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ). In terms of frequency, setsuzoku is more frequently used than akusesu. The former is also more productively used than the latter in that it may combine with a wider variety of nouns as its preceding element. I examined the types and the frequency of the nouns that co-occurred with both of the two expressions and those of the nouns that co-occurred with either of them. Even the types of the nouns that precede both expressions are restricted, and therefore the data may serve as a material useful for capturing the types of expressions used by the Japanese native speakers in general. In particular, I explored the semantic fields of the nouns that precede both expressions and found that these words are related to “transmission.” On the other hand, the nouns relating to “person” are only detected for akusesu, whilst the nouns relating to “material” and “machine” are only detected for setsuzoku.

近年、グローバル化とともに外来語の使用が増加している。外来語の増加は言語を多様かつ豊富にする面もあるが、日本語学習者にとっては多くの単語の意味を弁別しなければならない負担となる。本稿はBCCWJを使って、外来語と漢語のペアからなる｢アクセス｣と｢接続｣の前項に来る名詞を中心に特徴を分析した基礎的研究である。 頻度から見ると｢接続｣の占める割合が高く、前項に出現した名詞の種類も｢接続｣の方がより多様な語と結合できる造語力の高い単語であると考えられる。二つの単語に共通して共起する名詞と、特定の語彙にのみ出現する名詞の項目と頻度を見た結果、両語の前項に出現する名詞であっても、特によく一緒に使われる語彙は制限されていることから、一般に日本人の母語話者が主に使用する表現がどのようなものなのかを把握できる指標となる。両語に共通して出現する名詞の意味分野を分析した結果、｢通信｣に関連するものが最も多かった。意味分野が最も異なるのは、｢人物｣に関連する名詞は｢アクセス｣にのみ、｢資材｣と｢機械｣に関連する名詞は｢接続｣の前項にのみ出現することが分かった。