A Comparison of Transitive and Intransitive Usages of Japanese “-ka suru” Verbs: Multivariate Analyses of Examples from a Newspaper Corpus

• Published in: GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan) Vol. 139; no. 139; pp. 29 - 56
• Main Authors: Kiyama, Sachiko, Tamaoka, Katsuo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Kyoto The Linguistic Society of Japan 2011; Linguistic Society of Japan
• ISSN: 0024-3914; 2185-6710
• DOI: 10.11435/gengo.139.0_29

The present study explored transitive and intransitive usages of Japanese “-ka suru” verbs, based on multivariate analyses of examples from a newspaper corpus. Study 1 investigated ratios of transitive usage, intransitive usage, causative “-saseru” and passive “-sareru” in 24 “-ka suru” verbs, suggesting that a majority of “-ka suru” verbs were likely to be either predominantly transitive or predominantly intransitive. Furthermore, predominantly intransitive usage seemed to have a stronger effect than predominantly transitive usage. Study 2 examined how the two factors of positive/negative antecedent meaning and transitive/intransitive usages influence positive/negative meaning at the sentence level with the use of “-ka suru” verbs. Results revealed that positive/negative antecedent meaning had the strongest influence in determining positive/negative meaning at the sentence level. At the same time, transitive/intransitive usage had strong effect on positive/negative meaning at the sentence level when a “-ka suru” verb was predominantly transitive with its neutral antecedent meaning.