Benrina Yatsu: A Quantitative Corpus Study of the Usage of the Japanese Nominaliser Yatsu Together with Adjectives

Abstract: Yatsu has both been described as an ‘abusive’ version of the nominaliser mono, as well having properties not shared with mono. In this paper, the Japanese nominaliser yatsu was examined using the written corpus Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ) created by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). The research questions were as follows: “To what extent is yatsu used compared to the nominaliser mono?” and “How is yatsu used contextually?” Firstly, it was shown that mono is used much more extensively than yatsu. Secondly, examining the adjectives which appeared in front of yatsu, it was shown that there appear to be a negative connotation with the use of yatsu; this was evident when looking at the structure Noun + yoo na yatsu, in which there were no observed instances of a positive context; contrasting Noun + no yoo na mono in which there were no observed negative instances. The selection could however likely be a factor for this result.