變體漢文中「而」字之使用諸相－－以明治時期的候文為中心

Aspects of the Meaning and Usage the Character “Er” in Hentai-Kanbun: A Case Study of Souroubun Duri ng the Meiji Era

過去幾年來，有關候文的研究中，研究者多將焦點置於候文的措辭法與語序，向不關心候文的用字法。問題在於，屬於變體漢文（和化漢文）的候文，在用字法上與中文卻有不同。究竟二者之間有何差異？本文的目的，便在於以「而」字為例，對上述問題加以探討。關於中文與候文對「而」字的使用方法而言，由二者的對照可知，主要有五點差異。第一，候文中的「而」字幾乎不單獨使用，其用法與中文大異其趣。第二，候文中，幾乎不將「而」字當成中文的代詞（如「我」、「你」），以及作為動詞（如「至」、「如」、「能」）使用，而省略主語。第三，候文原則上以「候」結尾，沒有類似中文將「而」字置於句尾，表示嘆息的功能。第四，中文與候文皆將「而」字作為接續詞使用，但用法上卻不一致。第五，候文在「而」字的用字法上，可以看到字音化（聲音言語的視覺記號化）的特徵。也就是說，「而」字是以「て」或「で」音的表記符號作為首要目的，而不積極表現其原來的字義。因此，在判讀候文資料時，應特別謹慎地注意這些差異。

Though various studies have been conducted in recent years regarding the syntax and the word order, the choice and usage of Kanji characters in the Souroubun (候文) has drawn little attention. The question here is how the meaning and usage of kanji characters (漢字) in the Souroubun, a style of Hentai-Kanbun (Japanized Chinese, 變 體漢文), differs in the Chinese language. In this paper this question is discussed using the character “er” (而) as an example. The knowledge gained from this study on the usage of the character “er” both in Chinese and Souroubun Japanese can be summarized in the following five points. Firstly, there are not many instances of stand-alone usage of “er” character in Souroubun. Secondly the ‘而’character is used meaning, for example, “wo” (我) and “ru” (汝) as nouns as well as “dao” (到) and “yong” (用) as verbs in Chinese, but these usages as noun or verb are not seen much in Souroubun. Thirdly, in Chinese, the “er” character is often placed at the end of a sentence to express exclamation, but in Souroubun, such a use does not exist since sentences predominantly end with a character “sourou” (候). Fourthly, both in Chinese and Japanese, the “er” character is used similarly to a conjunction but each usage is different. Fifthly, the characteristic of the usage of the “er” character in Souroubun is that the character is used as a “borrowed character” representing the Japanese phonetic sound of “te” or “de”. Therefore it can be said that the primary aim of using “er” character in Souroubun is phonetic, noting the sound “te/de” without positively expressing the original meaning of the character.