When ‘hearing’ means ‘understanding’: The case of the verb kikoyu in pre-modern Japanese
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A new study draws on a rigorous analysis of the Corpus of Historical Japanese to trace the semantic evolution of the verb “kikoyu” from the 8th century to the 20th century. This verb, which initially referred to unintentional hearing, came to mean, over the centuries, first approximate understanding, then general understanding, and finally a form […]