Research on the authorship identification of <i>The Tale of Genji</i> based on quantitative analysis

Abstract Numerous scholarly contributions have enriched our understanding of The Tale of Genji; however, the question of its authorship remains a subject of debate, with no definitive resolution to date. This study addresses this controversy by employing a rigorous quantitative statistical approach. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of various linguistic indicators within The Tale of Genji, encompassing aspects such as distribution of part-of-speech, function words, word length, N-Grams, and sentence-segments. These characteristic parameters were subsequently utilized to perform principal component analysis, perform non-parametric tests, calculate relative entropy, and assess relative distances. The findings of this analysis reveal a remarkable consistency in writing style between Chapters 43–54 and the preceding Chapters 1–42 of The Tale of Genji. Consequently, the quantitative statistical examination presented in this study provides robust evidence to support the conclusion that a single authorship underlies the entire text of The Tale of Genji, refuting the hypothesis of a second author.