The use of the dative case particle ‘ni’ in Japanese literature – a comparison of Kawabata and Ōe

Abstract: This thesis investigates the usage of the Japanese dative particle ni in two famous, Nobel-prize winner Japanese authors' novels: Yasunari Kawabata's Yukiguni and Kenzaburō Ōe's Kojinteki Na Taiken, with the classification framework presented in Mizutani (2005). Ni is said to be one of the most complex and hardly definable particles in the Japanese language, and as such has been studied from various perspectives. The present study adds yet another perspective, namely how this particle is used in Japanese literature, and to analyze whether the classification for ni in Mizutani (2005) is adequate in order to classify the various usages of ni appearing in it. In this thesis, all appearing ni were observed and a classification of them was attempted. The results showed that the most favorable function of the particle was to express goal in the case of both authors, most often structures including ”ni naru” – ”to become” –, followed by phrases expressing time in Kawabata's case, and phrases expressing direction and time in Ōe's case. The framework was deemed adequate in the sense that all categories in the classification appeared in the two novels. However, a considerable amount of ni could not be classified with the framework as basis. These expressions were analyzed and discussed with the help of previous research, most prominently Hansen (2005) and Sadakane/Koizumi (1995).