Exploring the Language Variation in the Law

Résumé fourni par la source

Does language variation exist within the law?This paper takes up the question, and examined the existing Japanese law with a corpus tool.The language variation.two alternations between two different verb conjugation types (sahen/godan (e.g., zokus-inai/zokus-anai 'do not belong') and sahen/kami-ichidan (e.g., ronz-uru/ronz-iru 'to discuss') conjugation pattern) are shown to exist in the law through an examination of 14 high-frequency verbs.Not only does the variation exist among different laws, it also exists between laws promulgated in the same year and, furthermore, within the very same law.As such, the result most eloquently demonstrates that the variation is well below the consciousness of the lawmakers and bureaucrats, and that language variation can be located even in the most carefully scripted texts.Some advantages and disadvantages of law texts as linguistic data are discussed, and the following topics are mentioned for further study: the need for tracing the revision history, a possibility of fossilization of an archaic form through a copy-and-paste of the specific phrases in the preceding laws, and the identification of unnoticed dialectal forms in bylaws.法令を言語資料として使用する試みとして、現行法令に見られるサ変動詞の 五段・上一段活用とのゆれを調査した。総務省「法令データ提供システム」 からダウンロードしたデータを検索ツール「ひまわり」用に XML 化し、実 際に変異が認められ生起数が 100 以上の 14 の動詞について未然形(五段) ・ 終止形(上一段)で抽出を行い、各活用型での使用率を計算した。ゆれは多

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