COMPARATION ANALYSIS OF THE MEANING OF DAIJOUBU, II, AND KEKKOU ADJECTIVES IN JAPANESE

Abstract

As a language rich in vocabulary, Japanese has many words with the same meaning or synonyms, which often causes difficulties for Japanese learners. In addition, many Japanese words have different meanings but are used interchangeably, such as daijoubu (???), ii (??), and kekkou (??). When viewed from their basic meanings alone, the words daijoubu, ii, and kekkou have clearly different meanings. However, the three words undergo changes and shifts in meaning so that they have the potential for substitution in some sentence contexts. The purpose of this study is to find out the meaning of daijoubu, ii, and kekkou in Japanese speech. The method used in this research is data obtained from Corpus Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ). The results show that daijoubu, ii, and kekkou both have equivalent meanings meaning 'enough' and 'good', and have the potential for substitution. Then almost all meanings between daijoubu and ii can replace each other. Daijoubu adjective, which means 'strong,' ii adjective, which means 'condition that suits the situation and time', and 'good personality' have no substitution potential.