Talk:連れ来たる

After researching this more, it appears to me that the more common form this word took was 連れ来る. Should that be the main entry instead and 連れ来たる be an alternate spelling? 馬太阿房 (talk) 17:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

• @馬太阿房: Extremely more common is 連れてくる at 152K googits on Google Books, and lemma spelling "連れて来る" at 98.5K googits, compared to only 1,080 googits for "連れ来る" and a paltry 225 for "連れ来たる".

As it is, 来る (kuru) and 来たる (kitaru) are related, but they are wholly separate verbs with separate morphology and separate pronunciation. Neither of these, nor any compound verbs including these, should be listed as alternative spellings of the other. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:20, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr: I should have clarified. I'm referring to 連れ来る (tsurekitaru) as the more common spelling of 連れ来たる. The spellings 来る and 来たる are both often read きたる (just diffences in okurigana usage). I think 来る has fallen out of usage as a spelling for きたる and so has this word I'm talking about so I have labled it "archaic" 馬太阿房 (talk) 21:43, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

• @馬太阿房: Ah, forgive me. つれくる also appears to exist, and I misunderstood your intent. I have no objection to listing 連れ来る as an alternative spelling for 連れ来たる so long as the 連れ来る entry includes separate sections for both the つれくる and つれきたる readings. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:40, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr:Okay, this entry now directs to the entry 連れ来る which I thought should be the main entry as it seems more common spelling of つれきたる. I have also made a section on that entry page for the つれくる reading which appears to have exactly the same meaning. 馬太阿房 (talk) 00:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• @馬太阿房: 連れ来る does indeed seem to be somewhat more common than 連れ来たる. However, it can be tricky to evaluate readings. Are you certain that the instances of 連れ来る that you're finding are intended to be read as つれきたる rather than つれくる?

I'm mostly finding either verb form in what appear to be somewhat formal and/or archaic works, which makes things a bit more difficult, as these kinds of writing tend to provide fewer instances of reading hints. As a potential workaround, I note that style guides for modern Japanese tend to recommend that auxiliary verbs be written in kana; although formal or archaic writing styles may ignore this, we might still find useful information by searching for these forms. On Google Books, I get 79 googits for 連れくる, and only 54 for 連れきたる, suggesting that つれくる may be a more common reading. Interestingly, a quick scan of the hits suggests that 連れくる is more common for waka and other forms of native Japanese literature, while 連れきたる is more common for translated religious books, such as the Ramayana or the Bible.

Another possible approach is to search for conjugated forms. つれくる would conjugate to つれきて, kanji-fied as 連れ来て, and つれきたる would be つれきたって → 連れ来って. This nets us 814 apparent hits for 連れ来て and a smaller 228 hits for 連れ来って, again suggesting that つれくる is the more common reading for 連れ来る.

In light of these findings, I'd be more inclined to put the lemma entry for つれきたる at 連れ来たる, and have a stub at 連れ来る for the つれきたる reading that indicates an alternative spelling and links the user through to 連れ来たる. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:17, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr:Thanks for your analysis. Had you also done a search on "連れ來る" (356 google hits, and 1,150 on google books) and "連れ來たる" (only 1 google hit surprisingly, and 10 on google books)? Does this tell us anything more? That sort of search (using the kyuujitai form 連れ來る) would bring up the older references which I had perhaps incorrectly assumed would be read つれきたる. Isn't くる a more modern reading for 来る than きたる? I don't know how common the writing auxiliary verbs in kana was in former times was, do you? 馬太阿房 (talk) 16:42, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• @馬太阿房: くる is indeed the more common modern reading for 来る. きたる appears to be possible, but more commonly spelled with the た in the okurigana, as 来たる.

Auxiliary verbs spelled in kana appears to be a more modern style preference. I brought that up mainly as a means of attempting to suss out trends that cannot be immediately divined from the plain form of the verb in the kanji spellings.

Searching for conjugated forms is another such approach. Looking at the conjugated て forms, 連れ來て without gemination is almost certainly つれきて, while 連れ來って with gemination would have to be つれきたって. Searching in Google Books for these conjugations with the kyūjitai spellings shows 9 hits for 連れ來て and 10 hits for 連れ來って, a roughly even distribution. Searching just plain Google finds 10 hits for "連れ來て" and zero hits for "連れ來って". That said, given the extremely small result sets, I am loath to use these findings of kyūjitai spellings as anything conclusive.

It's also worth noting that older texts are more likely to vary in how okurigana are used (not using any in extreme cases of 漢文 (kanbun), such as 不忍 (shinobazu), more normally written these days as 忍ばず), whereas modern Japanese education, reference materials, and writing styles all tend towards more extensive use of okurigana to clarify exactly which term is intended. As such, historical texts are generally not useful, nor usable, in determining the best lemma form of a word in the modern language.

Lastly, 来る (kuru) and 来たる (kitaru) are similar in meaning, but with important differences in nuance. 来る (kuru) is just “to come”, while 来たる (kitaru) is more like “to come into a place, to arrive”. I suspect it was used as a translation of archaic English phrasing like “come unto (a location)”, the kind of phrasing one finds in some Bible translations. 来たる (kitaru) also has additional meanings of “to come to the end of its/one's time → to no longer be useful; to become old and senile”, and even “to fall completely in love with someone”. When evaluating the connotations of つれくる versus つれきたる, the latter two meanings of kitaru are probably not relevant; that said, the sense of “coming with someone (and possibly still somewhere along the way)” for つれくる may be an important distinction from the sense of “coming with someone (and arriving at the destination)” for つれきたる. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:14, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr: Your points are well taken, except for your point about きたる more commonly spelled with the た in the okurigana, as 来たる which I'm not sure I can agree with. Curious why you didn't search google books for other conjugated forms of the word つれきたる which would distinctly show which word was being used. For example, I just searched "連れ来り" (continuative form) and got 2200 hits and "連れ來り" yielded 1,310 additional for a total of 3510 hits and both of those are obviously results showing た not in the okurigana. I also searched "連れ來たり" and got only 9 hits, which leads me to believe that た was not usually part of the okurigana. Anything wrong with my reasoning here? 馬太阿房 (talk) 21:59, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• Re: okurigana, it's important to distinguish between historical and modern usage. For instance, searching Google Books for just titles in the 21st century, "来たって" gives us 71 apparent hits when paging through, while "来って" gives us only 14.

Re: the り ending, that can also give rise to false positives with classical / archaic verb 来り (keri), used to indicate that someone has arrived.

Re: the whole construction, both つれくる and つれきたる are somewhat archaic and unusual compared to the more-common 連れてくる. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:31, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry to be brief, I'm short on time. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:32, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr:That's why I have labled the term つれきたる archaic. Thanks for pointing out the possibility of the reading つれけり for 連れ来り. I didn't think of that. Thanks for spending the time to help me research this. Based upon your analysis, I think you may be right that the main entry for つれきたる should be 連れ来たる instead of 連れ来る. I'll change things around again later unless someone beats me to it. 馬太阿房 (talk) 23:59, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Done.馬太阿房 (talk) 05:53, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eirikr Hmmm. I just noticed the wiktionary entries 来たる and 来る with 来る currently as the main lemma entry for きたる. Is this okay or should we change that too? You may want to research that too.馬太阿房 (talk) 18:55, 18 August 2017 (UTC). BTW, those links you provided above to searche displaying filtered results for titles published in the 21st century don't show any results anymore. I've tried to recreate your results, but was unable to and don't know what I'm doing wrong.馬太阿房 (talk) 19:36, 18 August 2017 (UTC)