Once upon a time, an enthusiastic student of mine talked to his Japanese friend and was told that Particle Koto could be always interpreted as 'Matter'. Of course, I suspected neither my student nor his Japanese friend. However, as a matter of fact, in Japanese, can Particle Koto be always interpreted as 'Matter'? Really? Even we are foreigners, we can of course quote the research results from some Japanese linguists to verify if “Particle Koto” could always be interpreted as 'Matter' or not.
Dr. Kyōsuke Kindaichi
Dr. Kyōsuke Kindaichi (Japanese: 金田一京助, 1882 ~ 1971) was a famous Japanese linguist from Morioka, Iwate Prefecture. He was an awardee of the Order of Cultural Merit in 1954. He also had authored a Japanese dictionary called Shinsen Kokugo Jiten in which he pointed out that: #Dr. Kyōsuke Kindaichi #Shinsen Kokugo Jiten
Whenever Koto is activated its nominalizing functionality, it can neither be written in Kanji(事)nor be interpreted as 'Matter'.