The Journal of Studies in Language 언어연구 ISSN:1225-4770(Print) 2671-6151(Online)

This study aims to investigate the function shift of a lexical item, ‘toka’ from a Coordinator to an Adverbial Particle, along with its additional usage change as a Quotation Marker. The Coordinator ‘toka’ has long been perceived as a combination of the quotative ‘to’ and the adverbial particle ‘ka’ since the lexical item has been established as a particle since the Muromachi era. In that period, ‘toka’ is certainly a Coordinator, although it seems easy to see the influence of ‘to’ as a quotation marker and ‘ka’ as an adverbial particle that shows uncertainty. During the Meiji era, ‘toka’ further reached the status as a Coordinating conjunction on its own, being the host of another suffixal particle. Furthermore, in the later years of Edo, there are some cases in which ‘toka’ implies implicit items in the conjunct. This usage gives rise to ‘toka’ as an adverbial particle, which is productively used in Contemporary Japanese. It is worthwhile to notice that ‘toka’ is used as a Coordinator when it concords with a verb like ‘iu,’ whereas ‘toka’ function more frequently as a quotation marker. The current research, in short, shows that the dual functions of the Adverbial Particle and Quotation Marker in the usage of ‘toka’ did originate from its coordinating function.