Why do the singular first person pronouns 俺{おい}等{ら} and 俺{お}等{ら} involve the plural affix 等?
Tell me more
×
Japanese Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for
students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
|
|
First, I am not sure that /ora/ really belongs in this category. Most dictionaries simply list it as a variant of /ore/. But /oira/ is pretty unanimously agreed to derive from /orera/, 俺 + 等 as you say, so I will stick to discussion of that one. (In any case, presumably whatever applies to /oira/ would also apply to /ora/ if indeed they were the same /-ra/.) So, the key point is that 等 does not necessarily mean "[+plural]" in a literal sense. In the case of /oira/ it was originally a way of expressing non-specificness and therefore humbleness. Contemporary first-person singular usages like /watakusi.domo/ and /watakusi nado/ are, I think, an example of the same phenomenon: they don't mean "myself and others", but rather "(a lowly) one such as myself". You can find this usage attached to other pronouns too in historical documents; the Kojien has an example of first-person singular /ware.ra/ for example. And of course it has also been attached to second- or third-person pronouns to express contempt (something like the contemporary /omae nado/). |
|||
|
|
