EN
Some literary techniques constitute rhetorical devices that are considered to be unique to the history of Japanese verse. Nevertheless, some English translations of Japanese texts lose connotation such techniques, and few studies of this phenomenon have been written in languages other than Japanese. This study applies the insights of two approaches, i.e. morphological and semantic analysis and a hermeneutics interpretation. The result is twofold. It offers a detailed linguistic analysis, providing many insights into the interpretation of these expressions; and accommodates the hermeneutical explanation given by M. Heidegger, showing the very core of makura-kotoba. First of all, I will give a brief review of previous scholarship on the matter, followed by structural and semantic analyses. Finally, I will attempt to use definitions of hermeneutics to speak about rhetorical devices of Old Japanese verse. Translations of Old Japanese songs with glossing and morphemic analyses will be given in the Appendix.