恐らく
Japanese
[edit]| Kanji in this term |
|---|
| 恐 |
| おそ Grade: S |
| kun'yomi |
Etymology
[edit]Sources are agreed that modern osoraku as an adverb is a clipping of older noun phrase 恐らくは (osoraku wa), trimming off the topic particle は (wa).[1][2][3][4] This clipped form first appears in the late 1500s.[1] Speculatively, this usage might have been influenced by the -ku adverbial ending used for adjectives.
Past there, different sources give different derivations for the osoraku portion itself.
- May be from the -ku nominalization of verb 恐る (osoru, “to fear, to be afraid of”),[4] originally a 四段活用 (yodan katsuyō, “quadrigrade-conjugation”) verb.[4][3][5] In the traditional analysis, the く (ku) noun-forming suffix attaches to the 未然形 (mizenkei, “irrealis form”) of the verb stem, ending in -a: osoru (plain form) → osora- (irrealis) + -ku (noun-forming suffix) = osoraku.
- Older documents also record a form 恐るらくは (osoruraku wa), which may be from 恐る (osoru, “to fear, to be afraid of”) as either a 上二段活用 (kami nidan katsuyō, “upper bigrade-conjugation”) or 下二段活用 (shimo nidan katsuyō, “lower bigrade-conjugation”) verb. In the traditional analysis, for bigrade verbs, the く (ku) noun-forming suffix manifests instead as らく (raku) and attaches to the 終止形 (shūshikei, “terminal or predicative form”) of the verb, the standard "plain" or "dictionary form" ending in -u: osoru + -raku = osoruraku.[6][7][3]
The irregularities in the verb form required for -ku nominalization, and the shifts between bare -ku and longer form -raku, can be resolved if the underlying form of the nominalizing suffix were -aku instead, syntactically acting as a noun, and thus requiring that the verb be in the 連体形 (rentaikei, “adnominal form”). Also, Old Japanese did not allow hiatus (consecutive vowels without an intervening consonant), forcing either vowel fusion or vowel elision. For bigrade osoru, we would have adnominal form osoruru + suffix -aku, with the final -u in osoruru eliding to give us attested osoruraku.
*/osoruru aku wa/ → /osoruraku wa/ → /osoraku wa/ → /osoraku/
Pronunciation
[edit]Adverb
[edit]Usage notes
[edit]- Usually written in hiragana.
- Often used when predicting a negative outcome.
- Expresses a higher degree of certainty than 多分 (tabun).
Synonyms
[edit]- 十中八九 (jutchū hakku): literally “eight or nine times out of ten”: in all likelihood
- 多分 (tabun): maybe, perhaps, probably
- きっと (kitto)
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 “恐”, in 日本国語大辞典 [Nihon Kokugo Daijiten][1] (in Japanese), concise edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2006
- ^ “恐らく”, in デジタル大辞泉 [Digital Daijisen][2] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, updated roughly every four months
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1997), 新明解国語辞典 [Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
- ^ “恐る”, in 日本国語大辞典 [Nihon Kokugo Daijiten][3] (in Japanese), concise edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2006
- ^ “恐らくは”, in 日本国語大辞典 [Nihon Kokugo Daijiten][4] (in Japanese), concise edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2006
- ^ “恐らくは”, in デジタル大辞泉 [Digital Daijisen][5] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, updated roughly every four months
- Japanese terms spelled with 恐 read as おそ
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