Old Japanese
RegionJapan
Era8th century
Familycoloraltaic
Fam 1Japonic
Fam 2Insular
ProtonameProto-Japonic
ScriptMan'yōgana
Iso 3ojp
Linglistojp
Lingname[a]
NoticeIPA
Glottooldj1239
GlottorefnameOld Japanese

Old Japanese (上代日本語, Jōdai Nihon-go) is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period. Old Japanese is an early member of the Japonic language family. No genetic links to other language families have been proven.

The bulk of the Old Japanese corpus consists of poetry, especially the Man'yōshū, with a smaller number of formal prose works. These texts were written using man'yōgana, a writing system that employs Chinese characters as syllabograms or (occasionally) logograms. The language featured a few phonological differences from later forms, such as a simpler syllable structure and distinctions between several pairs of syllables that have been pronounced identically since Early Middle Japanese. The phonetic realization of these distinctions is uncertain. Internal reconstruction points to a pre-Old Japanese phase with fewer consonants and vowels.

As is typical of Japonic languages, Old Japanese is primarily an agglutinative language with a subject–object–verb word order, adjectives and adverbs preceding the nouns and verbs they modify and auxiliary verbs and particles appended to the main verb. Unlike later forms of Japanese, Old Japanese adjectives can be used uninflected to modify following nouns. Old Japanese verbs have a rich system of tense and aspect suffixes.

Sources and dating

Old Japanese is usually defined as the language of the Nara period (710–794), when the capital was Heijō-kyō (now Nara).[1][2] That is the period of the earliest connected texts in Japanese, the 112 songs included in the Kojiki (712). The other major literary sources of the period are the 128 songs included in the Nihon Shoki (720) and the Man'yōshū (c. 759), a compilation of over 4,500 poems.[3][4] Shorter samples are 25 poems in the Fudoki (720) and the 21 poems of the Bussokuseki-kahi (c. 752). The latter has the virtue of being an original inscription, whereas the oldest surviving manuscripts of all the other texts are the results of centuries of copying, with the attendant risk of scribal errors.[5] Prose texts are more limited but are thought to reflect the syntax of Old Japanese more accurately than verse texts do. The most important are the 27 ja ('liturgies') recorded in the Engishiki (compiled in 927) and the 62 ja (literally 'announced order', meaning imperial edicts) recorded in the Shoku Nihongi (797).[4][6]

A limited number of Japanese words, mostly personal names and place names, are recorded phonetically in ancient Chinese texts, such as the "Wei Zhi" portion of the Records of the Three Kingdoms (3rd century AD), but the transcriptions by Chinese scholars are unreliable.[7] The oldest surviving inscriptions from Japan, dating from the 5th or early 6th centuries, include those on the Suda Hachiman Shrine Mirror, the Inariyama Sword, and the Eta Funayama Sword. Those inscriptions are written in Classical Chinese but contain several Japanese names that were transcribed phonetically using Chinese characters.[8][9] Such inscriptions became more common from the Suiko period (592–628).[10] Those fragments are usually considered a form of Old Japanese.[11]

Of the 10,000 paper records kept at Shōsōin, only two, dating from about 762, are in Old Japanese.[12] Over 150,000 wooden tablets (ja) dating from the late 7th and early 8th century have been unearthed. The tablets bear short texts, often in Old Japanese. Their language is more colloquial in style than the polished poems and liturgies of the primary corpus.[13]

Writing system

Main articles: Man'yōgana and Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai

Artifacts inscribed with Chinese characters dated as early as the 1st century AD have been found in Japan, but detailed knowledge of the script seems not to have reached the islands until the early 5th century. According to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, the script was brought by scholars from Baekje (southwestern Korea).[14] The earliest texts found in Japan were written in Classical Chinese, probably by immigrant scribes. Later "hybrid" texts show the influence of Japanese grammar, such as the word order (for example, the verb being placed after the object).[15]

Chinese and Koreans had long used Chinese characters to write non-Chinese terms and proper names phonetically by selecting characters for Chinese words that sounded similar to each syllable. Koreans also used the characters phonetically to write Korean particles and inflections that were added to Chinese texts to allow them to be read as Korean (Idu script). In Japan, the practice was developed into ja, a complete script for the language that used Chinese characters phonetically, which was the ancestor of modern kana syllabaries.[16] This system was already in use in the verse parts of the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720).[17][18]

For example, the first line of the first poem in the Kojiki was written with five characters:[19][20]

夜久毛多都
Middle Chinese[b]ltcltcltcltcltc
Old Japaneseojpojp
eight-cloudrise.adn
'many clouds rising'

This method of writing Japanese syllables by using characters for their Chinese sounds (ja) was supplemented with indirect methods in the complex mixed script of the Man'yōshū (c. 759).[21][22][23]

Syllables

In ja, each Old Japanese syllable was represented by a Chinese character. Although any of several characters could be used for a given syllable, a careful analysis reveals that 88 syllables were distinguished in early Old Japanese, typified by the Kojiki songs:[24][25]

Syllables in early Old Japanese, with common man'yōgana[c]
ojp 阿ojp 加,迦ojp 賀ojp 佐ojp 邪ojp 多ojp 陀ojp 那ojp 波ojp 婆ojp 麻ojp 夜ojp 良ojp 和
ojp 伊ojp 岐ojp 芸ojp 斯,志ojp 士ojp 知ojp 遅ojp 爾,迩ojp 比ojp 毘ojp 美ojp 理ojp 韋
ojp 紀ojp 疑ojp 斐ojp 備ojp 微
ojp 宇ojp 久ojp 具ojp 須ojp 受ojp 都ojp 豆ojp 奴ojp 布ojp 夫ojp 牟ojp 由ojp 流
ojp 亜ojp 祁ojp 牙ojp 勢,世ojp 是ojp 弖ojp 傅ojp 泥ojp 弊ojp 辨ojp 賣ojp 延ojp 禮ojp 恵
ojp 気ojp 宜ojp 閇ojp 倍ojp 米
ojp 淤,意ojp 古ojp 胡,呉ojp 蘇ojp 俗,蘇ojp 斗ojp 度ojp 怒ojp 富,本ojp 煩ojp 毛ojp 用ojp 漏,路ojp 袁,遠
ojp 許ojp 碁ojp 曾ojp 叙ojp 登ojp 杼ojp 能ojp 母ojp 余,與ojp 呂

Shinkichi Hashimoto discovered in 1917 that many syllables that have a modern i, e or o occurred in two forms, termed types A (甲, kō) and B (乙, otsu).[24][26] These are denoted by subscripts 1 and 2 respectively in the above table. The syllables mo1 and mo2 are not distinguished in the slightly later Nihon Shoki and Man'yōshū, reducing the syllable count to 87.[27][28] Some authors also believe that two forms of po were distinguished in the Kojiki.[29] All of these pairs had merged in the Early Middle Japanese of the Heian period.[30][31]

The consonants g, z, d, b and r did not occur at the start of a word.[32] Conversely, syllables consisting of a single vowel were restricted to word-initial position, with very few exceptions.[33][34] The traditional view is that the system has gaps where yi and wu might be expected, as in later forms of Japanese. Alexander Vovin argues that the non-initial syllables i and u in words such as ojp 'oar', ojp 'to lie down', ojp 'to regret' (with conclusive ojp), ojp 'to age' and ojp, the adnominal form of the verb ojp 'to plant', should be read as Old Japanese syllables yi and wu.[35]

Frequencies of Old Japanese syllables in the Man'yōshū[36]
-k-g-s-z-t-d-n-p-b-m-y-r-w-
-a461276163358347325552127345891645021956018318442132581
-i136795771762807035021953357101348958558183901270
-i2690404756140589
-u1556485544425079044417106514492905389269221903656
-e14511451312202102831727142511012033186442598342
-e210114899592871406
-o124411995138536848526958318707577888712153657
-o2340743612061225848882961813121177

The rare vowel ojp almost always occurred at the end of a morpheme. Most occurrences of ojp, ojp and ojp were also at the end of a morpheme.[37]

The ja typically did not distinguish voiced from voiceless consonants, and wrote some syllables with characters that had fewer strokes and were based on older Chinese pronunciations imported via the Korean peninsula. For example,

  • ojp was written with the character 支, pronounced *kje in Old Chinese and ltc in Middle Chinese, and
  • ojp was written with the character 止, pronounced *tjəʔ in Old Chinese and ltc in Middle Chinese.[38]

Transcription

Several different notations for the type A/B distinction are found in the literature, including:[39][40][41]

Common notations for the type A/B distinction
index notationi1i2e1e2o1o2
Kindaichi, Miller, Tōdōiïeëoö
Voviniïeɛoə
modified Mathias–Millerîïêëôö
Yale (Martin)yiiyyeeywoo̠
Unger, Frellesvig and Whitmaniwiyeewoo

Phonology

There is no consensus on the pronunciation of the syllables distinguished by ja.[42] One difficulty is that the Middle Chinese pronunciations of the characters used are also disputed, and since the reconstruction of their phonetic values is partly based on later Sino-Japanese pronunciations, there is a danger of circular reasoning.[43] Additional evidence has been drawn from phonological typology, subsequent developments in the Japanese pronunciation, and the comparative study of the Ryukyuan languages.[44]

Consonants

Miyake reconstructed the following consonant inventory:[45]

Old Japanese consonants
LabialCoronalPalatalVelar
Obstruentvoiceless
  • p
  • t
  • s
  • k
voiced prenasalized
  • ᵐb
  • ⁿd
  • ⁿz
  • ᵑɡ
Nasal
  • m
  • n
Liquid
  • r
Approximant
  • w
  • j

The voiceless obstruents /p, t, s, k/ had voiced prenasalized counterparts /ᵐb, ⁿd, ⁿz, ᵑɡ/.[45] Prenasalization was still present in the late 17th century (according to the Korean textbook Ch'ŏphae Sinŏ) and is found in some Modern Japanese and Ryukyuan dialects, but it has disappeared in modern Japanese except for the intervocalic nasal stop allophone [ŋ] of /ɡ/.[46] The sibilants /s/ and /ⁿz/ may have been palatalized before e and i.[47]

Comparative evidence from Ryukyuan languages suggests that Old Japanese p reflected an earlier voiceless bilabial stop *p.[48] There is general agreement that word-initial p had become a voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ] by Early Modern Japanese, as suggested by its transcription as f in later Portuguese works and as ph or hw in the Korean textbook Ch'ŏphae Sinŏ. In Modern Standard Japanese, it is romanized as h and has different allophones before various vowels. In medial position, it became [w] in Early Middle Japanese and has since disappeared except before a.[49] Many scholars, following Shinkichi Hashimoto, argue that p had already lenited to [ɸ] by the Old Japanese period, but Miyake argues that the choice of kanji indicates that it was still a stop.[50]

Vowels

The Chinese characters chosen to write syllables with the Old Japanese vowel a suggest that it was an open unrounded vowel /a/.[51] The vowel u was a close back rounded vowel /u/, unlike the unrounded /ɯ/ of Modern Standard Japanese.[52]

Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain the A/B distinctions made in ja. The issue is hotly debated, and there is no consensus.[39] The traditional view, first advanced by Kyōsuke Kindaichi in 1938, is that there were eight pure vowels, with the type B vowels being more central than their type A counterparts.[53] Others, beginning in the 1930s but more commonly since the work of Roland Lange in 1968, have attributed the type A/B distinction to medial or final glides /j/ and /w/.[54][40] The diphthong proposals are often connected to hypotheses about pre-Old Japanese, but all exhibit an uneven distribution of glides.[40]

Examples of reconstructions of type A/B distinctions[39]
i1i2e1e2o1o2Author
iwiewewooKikusawa (1935)
iïeëoöKindaichi (1938), Miller (1967)
iïjeəjoəArisaka (1955)
jiijeeoɵHattori (1958)
jiijeewooLange (1968, 1973)
iwijeewooUnger (1977), Frellesvig and Whitman (2008)
iïeɛoɵŌno (1982)
iɨeəjoəMiyake (2003)

The distinction between mo1 and mo2 was seen only in Kojiki and vanished afterwards. The distribution of syllables suggests that there may have once been *po1, *po2, *bo1 and *bo2.[28]

Accent

Although modern Japanese dialects have pitch-accent systems, pitch distinctions were usually not shown in ja. However, in one part of the Nihon Shoki, the Chinese characters appeared to have been chosen to represent pitch patterns similar to those recorded in the Ruiju Myōgishō, a dictionary that was compiled in the late 11th century. In that section, a low-pitch syllable was represented by a character with the Middle Chinese level tone and a high pitch was represented by a character with one of the other three Middle Chinese tones. A similar division was used in the tone patterns of Chinese poetry, which were emulated by Japanese poets in the late Asuka period. Thus, it appears that the Old Japanese accent system was similar to that of Early Middle Japanese.[55]

Phonotactics

Old Japanese words consisted of one or more open syllables of the form (C)V, subject to additional restrictions:

  • Words did not begin with r or the voiced obstruents b, d, z, and g, with the exception of a few loanwords.[56]
  • A bare vowel did not occur except for word-initially: vowel sequences were not permitted.[33]

In 1934, Hideyo Arisaka proposed a set of phonological restrictions permitted in a single morpheme. Arisaka's Law states that -o2 was generally not found in the same morpheme as -a, -o1 or -u. Some scholars have interpreted that as a vestige of earlier vowel harmony, but it is very different from patterns that are observed in, for example, the Turkic languages.[57]

Morphophonemics

Two adjacent vowels fused to form a new vowel when a consonant was lost within a morpheme, or a compound was lexicalized as a single morpheme. The following fusions occurred:

i1 + a → e1
  • ojp 'bloom' + ojp 'exist' → ojp 'be blooming'[58][59]
  • ojp 'wear' + ojp 'be.ATT' → ojp 'wear.FIN'[60]
Further examples are provided by verbs ending with the past tense suffix -ojp and the verbal auxiliaries ojp 'conjecture' or ojp 'exist':[61]
  • ojp + ojp → ojp '(it) has surely fallen'[62]
  • ojp 'exist.INF.PST' + ojp → ojp 'it existed'[62]
i1 + o2 → e1
  • ojp 'real' + ojp 'person' → ojp 'living person'[63][d]
a + i → e2
  • ojp 'long' + ojp 'breath' → ojp 'sigh'[58]
  • ojp 'high' + ojp 'market' → ojp (place name)[58][64]
o2 + i → e2
  • ojp 'palace' + ojp 'enter' → ojp 'attendant'[58][60]
o2 + i → i2
  • ojp 'big' + ojp 'rock' → ojp 'big rock'[58][60]
u + i → i2
  • ojp 'young' + ojp 'term of veneration (male)' → ojp (title)[58][60]
u + a → o1
  • ojp 'number' + ojp 'to join' → ojp 'to count'[59][62]
u + o → o1
  • ojp 'ancient type of native weaving' + ojp 'weaving' → ojp 'native weaving'[58][59]

Adjacent vowels belonging to different morphemes, or pairs of vowels for which none of the above fusions applied, were reduced by deleting one or other of the vowels.[65] Most often, the first of the adjacent vowels was deleted:[66][67]

  • ojp 'eternal' + ojp 'rock' → ojp 'eternal rock; everlasting'[68][69]
  • ojp 'heaven' + ojp 'descend' → ojp 'descend from heaven'[70]

The exception to this rule occurred when the first of the adjacent vowels was the sole vowel of a monosyllabic morpheme (usually a clitic), in which case the other vowel was deleted:[66][67]

  • ojp (honorific) + ojp 'horse' → ojp 'honourable horse'[71]
  • ojp 'child, egg' + ojp 'birth' → ojp 'give birth, lay an egg'[72]

Cases where both outcomes are found are attributed to different analyses of morpheme boundaries:[66][69]

  • ojp 'my' + ojp 'house' → ojp 'my house'
  • ojp 'I' + ojp GEN + ojp 'house' → ojp 'my house'

Pre-Old Japanese

Internal reconstruction suggests that the stage preceding Old Japanese had fewer consonants and vowels.[73]

Consonants

Internal reconstruction suggests that the Old Japanese voiced obstruents, which always occurred in medial position, arose from the weakening of earlier nasal syllables before voiceless obstruents:[74][75]

  • b /ᵐb/ < *-mVp-, *-nVp-: e.g. ojp 'net' + ojp 'pull' → ojp 'trawling'
  • d /ⁿd/ < *-mVt-, *-nVt-: e.g. ojp 'mountain' + ojp 'path' → ojp 'mountain path'
  • z /ⁿz/ < *-mVs-, *-nVs-: e.g. ojp 'village' + ojp 'master' → ojp (title)
  • g /ᵑɡ/ < *-mVk-, *-nVk-

In some cases, such as ojp 'grain', ojp 'rudder' and ojp 'knee', there is no evidence for a preceding vowel, which leads some scholars to posit final nasals at the earlier stage.[56]

Some linguists suggest that Old Japanese w and y derive, respectively, from *b and *d at some point before the oldest inscriptions in the 6th century.[76] Southern Ryukyuan varieties such as Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni have /b/ corresponding to Old Japanese w, but only Yonaguni (at the far end of the chain) has /d/ where Old Japanese has y:[77]

  • rys 'I' and rys 'stomach' corresponding to Old Japanese ojp and ojp
  • Yonaguni yoi 'house', yoi 'hot water' and yoi 'mountain' corresponding to Old Japanese ojp, ojp and ojp

However, many linguists, especially in Japan, argue that the Southern Ryukyuan voiced stops are local innovations,[78] adducing a variety of reasons.[79]

Some supporters of *b and *d also add *z and *g, which both disappeared in Old Japanese, for reasons of symmetry.[80] However, there is very little Japonic evidence for them.[56][81]

Vowels

As seen in § Morphophonemics, many occurrences of the rare vowels i2, e1, e2 and o1 arise from fusion of more common vowels. Similarly, many nouns having independent forms ending in -i2 or -e2 also have bound forms ending in a different vowel, which are believed to be older.[82] For example, ojp 'rice wine' has the form ojp in compounds such as ojp 'sake cup'.[82][83] The following alternations are the most common:

  • i2/u-: ojp/ojp 'god, spirit',[82][83] ojp/ojp 'body',[82][84] ojp/ojp 'a calm'.[84] ojp/ojp 'moon', ojp/ojp 'stalk'.[85]
  • i2/o2-: ojp/ojp 'tree',[82][83] ojp/ojp 'Hades',[82]
  • e2/a-: ojp/ojp 'eye',[82] ojp/ojp 'heaven', ojp/ojp 'rain', ojp/ojp 'shade',[86] ojp/ojp 'day, sun', ojp/ojp 'nail, hoof', ojp/ojp 'bamboo'.[85]

The widely accepted analysis of this situation is that the most common Old Japanese vowels a, u, i1 and o2 reflect earlier *a, *u, *i and *ə respectively, and the other vowels reflect fusions of these vowels:[87]

  • i2 < *ui, *əi
  • e1 < *ia, *iə
  • e2 < *ai
  • o1 < *ua, *uə

Thus the above independent forms of nouns can be derived from the bound form and a suffix *-i.[82][83] The origin of this suffix is debated, with one proposal being the ancestor of the obsolescent particle ojp (whose function is also uncertain), and another being a weakened consonant (suggested by proposed Korean cognates).[88]

There are also alternations suggesting e2 < *əi, such as ojp/ojp 'back' and ojp/ojp 'bud'.[82] Some authors believe that they belong to an earlier layer than i2 < *əi, but others reconstruct two central vowels *ə and *ɨ, which merged everywhere except before *i.[63][89] Other authors attribute the variation to different reflexes in different dialects and note that *əi yields e in Ryukyuan languages.[90]

Some instances of word-final e1 and o1 are difficult to analyse as fusions, and some authors postulate *e and *o to account for such cases.[91] A few alternations, as well as comparisons with Eastern Old Japanese and Ryukyuan languages, suggest that *e and *o also occurred in non-word-final positions at an earlier stage but were raised in such positions to i1 and u, respectively, in central Old Japanese.[92][93] The mid vowels are also found in some early ja and in some modern Japanese dialects.[94]

Morphology

Old Japanese nominals tend to have simple morphology and little fusion, in contrast to the complex inflectional morphology of verbs.[95] Japanese at all stages has used prefixes with both nouns and verbs, but Old Japanese also used prefixes for grammatical functions later expressed using suffixes.[96] This is atypical of SOV languages, and may suggest that the language was in the final stage of a transition from a SVO typology.[96][97]

Nominals

Pronouns

Old Japanese include personal pronouns, demonstratives and an isolated interrogative pronoun ojp 'what'.[98] Many pronouns have both a short form and a longer form with attached ojp of uncertain etymology. If the pronoun occurs in isolation, the longer form is used. The short form is used with genitive particles or in nominal compounds, but in other situations either form is possible.[99]

Personal pronouns are distinguished by taking the genitive marker ojp, in contrast to the marker ojp used with demonstratives and nouns.[100]

  • The first-person pronouns, ojp and ojp, are used for the singular and plural respectively, though with some overlap. The ojp forms are also used reflexively, which suggests that ojp was originally an indefinite pronoun and gradually replaced ojp.[100]
  • The second-person pronoun is ojp.[98]
  • The third-person pronoun ojp is much less commonly used than the non-proximal demonstrative ojp from which it was derived.[101]
  • There is also an interrogative pronoun ojp and a reflexive pronoun ojp.[98]

Demonstratives often distinguish proximal (to the speaker) and non-proximal forms marked with ojp and ojp respectively. Many forms have corresponding interrogative forms ojp.[102]

Old Japanese demonstratives[103]
ProximalNon-proximalInterrogative
Nominalojpojpojp
Locationojpojpojp
Directionojpojpojp
Degreeojpojpojp
Mannerojpojp–
ojpojpojp
Time––ojp

In Early Middle Japanese, the non-proximal ojp forms were reinterpreted as hearer-based (medial), and the speaker-based forms were divided into proximal ojp forms and distal ojp/ojp forms, yielding the three-way distinction that is still found in Modern Japanese.[104]

Numerals

In later texts, such as the Man'yōshū, numerals are sometimes written using Chinese logographs, which give no indication of pronunciation.[105] The following numerals are attested phonographically:[106]

Phonographically attested Old Japanese cardinal numerals
1 ojp10 ojp100 ojp1000 ojp10,000 ojp
2 ojp20 ojp
3 ojp30 ojp
4 ojp40 ojp
5 ojp50 (ojp)500 ojp
6 ojp
7 ojp70 (ojp)
8 ojp80 ojp800 ojp
9 ojp

The forms for 50 and 70 are known only from Heian texts.[107]

There is a single example of a phonographically recorded compound number, in Bussokuseki 2:[108]

This example uses the classifiers ojp (used with tens and hundreds) and ojp (used with digits and hundreds).[109]

The only attested ordinal numeral is ojp 'first'.[110] In Classical Japanese, the other ordinal numerals have the same form as cardinals. This may also have been the case for Old Japanese, but there are no textual occurrences to settle the question.[111]

Classifiers

The classifier system of Old Japanese is much less developed than at later stages of the language, and classifiers are not obligatory between numerals and nouns.[112] A few bound forms are attested phonographically: ojp (used with digits and hundreds), ojp (used with tens and hundreds), ojp (for people), ojp, ojp (for grassy plants) and ojp (for days).[113] Many ordinary nouns can also be used either freely or as classifiers.[112]

Prefixes

Old Japanese nominal prefixes include honorific ojp, intensive ojp from ojp 'truth', diminutive or affectionate ojp and a prefix ojp of uncertain function.[114]

Suffixes

Old Japanese nominals have suffixes or particles to mark diminutives, plural number and case. When multiple suffixes occur, case markers come last.[115] Unmarked nouns (but not pronouns) are neutral as to number.[116] The main plural markers are the general-purpose ojp and two markers restricted to animate nouns, ojp (limited to five words) and ojp.[117]

The main case particles are[118]

The subject of a sentence is usually not marked.[122] There are a few cases in the Senmyō of subjects of active verbs marked with a suffix ojp, which is thought to be an archaism that was obsolete in the Old Japanese period.[123][124]

Verbs

Old Japanese has a richer system of verbal suffixes than later forms of Japanese.[125] Old Japanese verbs use inflection for modal and conjunctional purposes.[126] Other categories, such as voice, tense, aspect and mood, are expressed by using optional suffixed auxiliaries, which are also inflected:[127]

Inflected forms

As in later forms of Japanese, Old Japanese verbs have a large number of inflected forms. In traditional Japanese grammar, they are represented by six forms (ja, 活用形) from which all the others may be derived in a similar fashion to the principal parts used for Latin and other languages:[128]

未然形 (irrealis)
This form never occurs in isolation but only as a stem to which several particles and auxiliaries are attached.[129] This stem originated from resegmentation of an initial *a of several suffixes (auxiliary verbs) as part of the stem.[130][131]
連用形 (adverbial, infinitive)
This form is used to mark a predicate as coordinate with a following predicate.[132] It also serves as a stem for auxiliaries expressing tense and aspect, as well as suffixes ojp and ojp of adverbial subordinate forms.[133]
終止形 (conclusive, predicative)
This form is used as the main verb concluding a declarative sentence.[126] It is also used as a stem to which modal extensions, final particles, and some conjunctional particles are attached.[134] The conclusive form merged with the attributive form by about 1600, but the distinction is preserved in the Ryukyuan languages and Hachijō.[135]
連体形 (attributive, adnominal)
This form is used as the verb in a nominalized clause or a clause modifying a noun.[136] It also serves as a stem for the nominalizing suffix ojp and most conjunctional particles.[137]
已然形 (realis, exclamatory, subjunctive)
This form is used as the main verb in an exclamatory sentence or as the verb in an adverbial clause.[138] It also serves as a stem for the particles ojp (provisional) and ojp (concessive).[139]
命令形 (imperative)
This form expresses the imperative mood.[138]

This system has been criticized because the six forms are not equivalent, with one being solely a combinatory stem, three solely word forms, and two being both.[140] It also fails to capture some inflected forms.[141] However, five of the forms are basic inflected verb forms, and the system also describes almost all extended forms consistently.[142]

Conjugation classes

See also: Japanese godan and ichidan verbs

Old Japanese verbs are classified into eight conjugation classes that were originally defined for the classical Japanese of the late Heian period. In each class, the inflected forms showed a different pattern of rows of a kana table. These rows correspond to the five vowels of later Japanese, but the discovery of the A/B distinction in Old Japanese showed a more refined picture.[143]

Three of the classes are grouped as consonant bases:[144]

四段活用 (quadrigrade)
This class of regular consonant-base verbs includes approximately 75% of verbs.[144] The class is so named because the inflections in later forms of Japanese span four rows of a ja table, corresponding to four vowels. However, the discovery of the A/B distinction revealed that this class actually involved five different vowels in Old Japanese, with distinct vowels e1 and e2 in the exclamatory and imperative forms respectively.[143] The bases are almost all of the form (C)VC-, with the final consonant being p, t, k, b, g, m, s or r.[145]
ナ行変格活用 (n-irregular)
The three n-base verbs form a class of their own: ojp 'die', ojp 'depart' and the perfective auxiliary ojp. They are often described as a "hybrid" conjugation because the adnominal and exclamatory forms follow a similar pattern to vowel-base verbs.[146]
ラ行変格活用 (r-irregular)
The irregular r-base verbs are ojp 'be, exist' and other verbs that incorporate it, as well as ojp 'be sitting', which became the existential verb ja in later forms of Japanese.[147]
Conjugation of consonant-base verbs[148]
Verb classIrrealisInfinitiveConclusiveAdnominalExclamatoryImperativeGloss
quadrigradeojpojpojpojpojpojp'write'
n-irregularojpojpojpojpojpojp'die'
r-irregularojpojpojpojpojpojp'be, exist'

The distinctions between i1 and i2 and between e1 and e2 are eliminated after s, z, t, d, n, y, r and w.

There are five vowel-base conjugation classes:

下二段活用 (lower bigrade or e-bigrade)
The largest regular vowel-base class ends in e2 and includes approximately 20% of verbs.[145]
上二段活用 (upper bigrade or i-bigrade)
This class includes about 30 verbs whose bases end in i2.[145]
上一段活用 (upper monograde or i-monograde)
This class contains about 10 verbs of the form (C)i1-. Some monosyllabic i-bigrade verbs had already shifted to this class by Old Japanese, and the rest followed in Early Middle Japanese.[149]
カ行変格活用 (k-irregular)
This class consists of the single verb ojp 'come'.[150]
サ行変格活用 (s-irregular)
This class consists of the single verb ojp 'do'.[150]

Early Middle Japanese also has a 下一段活用 (lower monograde or e-monograde) category, consisting of a single verb ojp 'kick', which reflects the Old Japanese lower bigrade verb ojp.[151][152][153][154]

Conjugation of vowel-base verbs[148]
Verb classIrrealisInfinitiveConclusiveAdnominalExclamatoryImperativeGloss
e-bigradeojpojpojpojpojpojp'open'
i-bigradeojpojpojpojpojpojp'arise'
monogradeojpojpojpojpojpojp'see'
k-irregularojpojpojpojpojpojp'come'
s-irregularojpojpojpojpojpojp'do'

The bigrade verbs seem to belong to a later layer than other verbs.[155] Many e-bigrade verbs are transitive or intransitive counterparts of consonant-base verbs.[156] In contrast, i-bigrade verbs tend to be intransitive.[157] Some bigrade bases also appear to reflect pre-Old-Japanese adjectives with vowel stems combined with an inchoative *-i suffix:[158][159][160]

  • *-a-i > -e2, e.g. ojp 'redden, lighten' vs ojp 'red'.
  • *-u-i > -i2, e.g. ojp 'get desolate, fade' vs ojp 'lonely'.
  • *-ə-i > -i2, e.g. ojp 'get big, grow' vs ojp 'big'.

Copulas

Old Japanese has two copulas with limited and irregular conjugations:

Old Japanese copulas[161][162]
InfinitiveAdnominalGerund
ojpojpojp
ojpojp

The ojp form had a limited distribution in Old Japanese, and disappeared in Early Middle Japanese. In later Japanese, the ojp form became ja, but these forms have otherwise endured to modern Japanese.[163]

Verbal prefixes

Japanese has used verbal prefixes conveying emphasis at all stages, but Old Japanese also has prefixes expressing grammatical functions, such as reciprocal or cooperative ojp (from ojp 'meet, join'), stative ojp (from ojp 'exist'), potential ojp (from ojp 'get') and prohibitive ojp, which is often combined with a suffix ojp.[96][164]

Verbal auxiliaries

Old Japanese has a rich system of auxiliary elements that can be suffixed to verb stems and are themselves inflected, usually following the regular consonant-stem or vowel-stem paradigms, but never including the full range of forms found with full verbs.[165] Many of these disappeared in later stages of the language.[166]

Tense and aspect are indicated by suffixes attached to the infinitive.[167] The tense suffixes are:

  • the simple past ojp (conclusive), ojp (adnominal), ojp (exclamatory).[168][169] The variation may indicate an origin in multiple forms.[170] Indeed counterparts of ojp are absent from Ryukyuan and weakly attested in Eastern Old Japanese.[171]
  • the modal past or retrospective ojp, a fusion of the simple past with ojp 'exist'.[172][173]
  • the past conjectural ojp, a fusion of the simple past with the conjectural suffix ojp.[59][174]

The perfective suffixes are ojp and ojp.[175][176] During the Late Middle Japanese period, the tense and aspect suffixes were replaced with a single past-tense suffix ja, derived from ojp + ojp 'exist' > ojp.[125][177] However, the Hachijō language retains some of the early tense and aspect system, in particular reflexes of the old past suffix ojp and the distinction between ojp and ojp forms.[178]

Other auxiliaries are attached to the irrealis stem:

The honorific and iterative ceased to be productive in Middle Japanese.[166] During the Early Middle Japanese period, the causative ojp was replaced by ja.[190]

Adjectives

Old Japanese adjectives were originally nominals and, unlike in later periods, can be used uninflected to modify following nouns.[191][192] They can also take a suffix ojp (an adjectival copula), forming stative verbs conjugated in two classes:[193][194]

Conjugation of stative verbs[195][196]
ClassStemInfinitiveConclusiveAdnominalExclamatoryGloss
ojpojpojpojpojpojp'hard'
ojpojpojpojpojpojp'precious'

The second class, with stems ending in ojp, differs only in the conclusive form, whose suffix ojp was dropped by haplology.[197] Adjectives of this class tend to express more subjective qualities.[198] Many of them were formed from a verbal stem by the addition of a suffix ojp of uncertain origin.[199]

Towards the end of the Old Japanese period, a more expressive conjugation was formed by adding the verb ojp 'be' to the infinitive, with the sequence ojp reducing to ojp:[194]

Innovative conjugation of stative verbs[200]
IrrealisInfinitiveAdnominalGloss
ojpojpojp'hard'

Many adjectival nouns of Early Middle Japanese were based on Old Japanese adjectives that were formed with suffixes ojp, ojp or ojp.[201][202]

Syntax

As in later forms of Japanese, Old Japanese word order is predominantly subject–object–verb, with adjectives and adverbs preceding the nouns and verbs they modify and auxiliary verbs and particles consistently appended to the main verb.[203]

Questions, exclamations and prohibitives are marked using particles, either in the middle of the sentence or at the end, while imperatives are marked by conjugating the verb.[204]

Focus construction

Old Japanese makes extensive use of a focus construction, known as ja ('hanging-tying'), to express emphasis and questions. A focus particle marks a copular relation between the constituent preceding the particle and a predicate in the adnominal form, instead of the conclusive form usually found in declarative sentences.[205] The marked constituent is also typically fronted in comparison with its position in a corresponding declarative sentence.[206] The semantic effect (though not the syntactic structure) is often similar to a cleft sentence in English:[207]

The particles involved are

  • ojp, marking the focus of a yes–no question.[208] The particle ojp can also be used as a sentence-final marker of a yes–no question, in which case the verb is in the usual conclusive form.[209]
  • ojp, marking the phrase containing the interrogative word of an open question or the focus of a yes–no question.[210][211]
  • ojp ~ ojp, the usual declarative focus marker. By Early Middle Japanese, this had standardized as ojp.[212]
  • ojp, soliciting agreement, is rare in poetry but occurs in some prose works. By Early Middle Japanese, it had become ojp.[213]
  • ojp, marking a more emphatic focus.[214] In Early Middle Japanese, this particle occurs with a verb in the exclamatory form.[166][215]

The focus construction is also common in Classical Japanese, but disappeared after the Early Middle Japanese period.[216] It is still found in Ryukyuan languages, but is much less common there than in Old Japanese.[217]

Nominalization

The nominal form of a verb, marked with ojp, forms a nominalized clause.[218][219] The following example has a nominal clause within an adverbial clause marked with the infinitive form:[220][221]

The nominal was heavily used in Old Japanese, both with verbs and adjectives, but ceased to be productive in Early Middle Japanese, when its function was taken over by the adnominal.[218][222]

Dialects

See also: Eastern Old Japanese

Although most Old Japanese writing represents the language of the Nara court in central Japan, some sources come from eastern Japan:[223][224][225][226]

  • 230 ja 'eastern songs', making up volume 14 of the Man'yōshū,
  • 93 (101 according to some authors) ja 'borderguard songs' in volume 20 of the Man'yōshū, and
  • 9 songs in the Hitachi Fudoki (recorded 714–718, but the oldest extant manuscripts date from the late 17th century and show significant corruption[227]).

They record Eastern Old Japanese dialects,[228] with several differences from central Old Japanese (also known as Western Old Japanese):

  • There is no type A/B distinction on front vowels i and e, but o1 and o2 are distinguished.[229]
  • Pre-Old Japanese *ia yielded a in the east, where central Old Japanese has e1.[229]
  • The adnominal form of consonant-base verbs ended in ojp, whereas central Old Japanese had ojp for both the adnominal and the conclusive forms.[230] The modern Hachijō language distinguishes -o and -u in these forms.[231] A similar difference is preserved in Ryukyuan languages, suggesting that central Old Japanese had innovated by merging those endings.[232]
  • The adnominal form of adjectives had ojp in place of central Old Japanese ojp.[233][234] This form is also preserved in Hachijō.[231]
  • The imperative form of vowel-base verbs attached ojp, instead of the ojp used in central Old Japanese.[235] This difference has persisted into modern eastern and western dialects.[236]
  • There was a group of distinctive negative auxiliaries ojp and ojp, but they do not seem to be the source of the different negatives in the modern eastern and western Japanese dialects.[235]
  • There are a significant number of words borrowed from Ainu.[237][238][239]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Described as "The ancestor of modern Japanese. 7th–10th centuries AD." The more usual date for the boundary between Old Japanese to Middle Japanese is c. 800 (end of the Nara era).
  2. ^ Readings are given in Baxter's transcription for Middle Chinese, omitting marking of tones, which are not relevant here.
  3. ^ These are the characters most used in the Kojiki songs, except for go1 and zo1 (which do not occur in the Kojiki) from the Man'yōshū.
  4. ^ An alternative form, ojp, obtained by deleting the vowel -i, is also attested.[63]

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  • Pellard, Thomas (2024). "Ryukyuan and the reconstruction of proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan". Handbook of Japanese Historical Linguistics. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 39–68. ISBN 978-1-61451-285-1.
  • Russell, Kerri (2003). "Contraction and Monophthongization in Old Japanese". Perspectives on the Origins of the Japanese Language. Vol. 31. Kyoto: International Center for Japanese Studies. pp. 511–539. doi:10.15055/00005266
  • Seeley, Christopher (1991). A History of Writing in Japan. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-09081-1.
  • Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36918-3.
  • Unger, J. Marshall (2000). "Reconciling Comparative and Internal Reconstruction: The Case of Old Japanese /ti, ri, ni/". Language. 76 (3): 655–681. doi:10.2307/417138. JSTOR 417138
  • Vovin, Alexander (2010). Korea-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3278-0.
  • Vovin, Alexander (2014). "Man'yōshū" (Book 20). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-26198-3.
  • Vovin, Alexander (2020). A Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Western Old Japanese. 2nd ed. Leiden, Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-42211-7.
  • Vovin, Alexander & Ishisaki-Vovin, Sambi (2022). The Eastern Old Japanese Corpus and Dictionary. Leiden, Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-47119-1.
  • Whitman, John (2008). "The source of the bigrade conjugation and stem shape in pre-Old-Japanese". Proto-Japanese: Issues and Prospects. John Benjamins. pp. 160–173. ISBN 978-90-272-4809-1.
  • Yamaguchi, Akiho; Suzuki, Hideo; Sakanashi, Ryūzō; Tsukimoto, Masayuki (1997). Nihongo no Rekishi [A history of the Japanese language] (in Japanese). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. ISBN 978-4-13-082004-2.

Further reading

  • Proto-Japanese: Issues and Prospects. John Benjamins. 2008. ISBN 978-90-272-4809-1.
  • Hayata, Teruhiro (2000). "The liquid and stem-final vowel alternations of verbs in ancient Japanese". Gengo Kenkyu. 2000 (118): 5–27. doi:10.11435/gengo1939.2000.118_5
  • Kupchik, John E. (2007). "A comprehensive study of mwo, mö, mye, mey, po, pye, and pey syllables in the Eastern Old Japanese dialects". University of Hawai'i Working Papers in Linguistics. 38 (7): 1–33. hdl:10125/73219
  • Kupchik, John E. (2011). A grammar of the Eastern Old Japanese dialects (PhD thesis). University of Hawai'i. hdl:10125/101739
  • Martin, Samuel E. (1987). The Japanese Language Through Time. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03729-6.
  • Ōno, Susumu (2000). Nihongo no Keisei [The Formation of the Japanese Language] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 978-4-00-001758-9.
  • Tōdō, Akiyasu & Kanō, Yoshimitsu (2005). Gakken Shin Kan-Wa Daijiten [Gakken new Chinese-Japanese character dictionary] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Gakushū Kenkyūsha. ISBN 978-4-05-300082-8.
  • Yanagida, Yuko (2012). "The Syntactic Reconstruction of Alignment and Word Order: The Case of Old Japanese". Historical Linguistics 2009: Selected papers from the 19th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Vol. 320. Historical Linguistics: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. John Benjamins. pp. 107–128. doi:10.1075/cilt.320.06yan. ISBN 978-90-272-7480-9.
  • "Oxford-NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese". 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023. Old Japanese poems, in original script and transcription, with morphological and syntactic analysis, and a linked dictionary.
  • Japanese Historical Linguistics – collection of materials at Cornell University, including drafts of the Old Japanese chapters of Frellesvig 2010.