| Early Middle Japanese | |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | |
 | |
| Region | Japan |
| Era | Evolved intoLate Middle Japanese at the end of the 12th century |
Early form | |
| Hiragana,Katakana, andHan | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ojp (Old Japanese) |
ojp Described as "The ancestor of modern Japanese. 7th–10th centuries AD." The more usual date for the change from Old Japanese to Middle Japanese is ca. 800 (end of the Nara era). | |
| Glottolog | None |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Early Middle Japanese (中古日本語,Chūko-Nihongo)[1] is a stage of theJapanese language between 794 and 1185, which is known as theHeian period (平安時代). The successor toOld Japanese (上代日本語), it is also known asLate Old Japanese. However, the term "Early Middle Japanese" is preferred, as it is closer toLate Middle Japanese (中世日本語, after 1185) than to Old Japanese (before 794).
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Old Japanese had borrowed and adapted the Chinese script to write Japanese. In Early Middle Japanese, two new scripts emerged: the kana scriptshiragana andkatakana. That development simplified writing and brought about a new age in literature, with many classics such asThe Tale of Genji,The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, andThe Tales of Ise.
Early Middle Japanese was written in three different ways. It was first recorded inMan'yōgana (万葉仮名), literally "ten thousand leaves borrowed labels", in reference to theMan'yōshū poetry anthology and the "borrowing" of thekanji characters as "labels" for the sounds of Japanese. CertainChinese characters were borrowed to phonetically spell out Japanese sounds.Cursive handwriting gradually gave rise to thehiragana (平仮名, "flat/simple borrowed labels") and Buddhist shorthand practices of using pieces of kanji to denote the sounds then developed into thekatakana (片仮名, "partial/piece borrowed labels").
| phoneme Man'yō, hira, kata | Ø ア行 | カ行 | サ行 | タ行 | /n/ ナ行 | ハ行 | /m/ マ行 | /j/ ヤ行 | /r/ ラ行 | /w/ ワ行 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /k/ | /g/ | /s/ | /z/ | /t/ | /d/ | /ɸ/ | /b/ | |||||||
| /a/ ア段 | /a/ 安、あ、ア | /ka/ | /ga/ | /sa/ | /za/ | /ta/ | /da/ | /na/ 奈、な、ナ | /ɸa/ | /ba/ | /ma/ 末、ま、マ | /ja/ 也、や、ヤ | /ra/ 良、ら、ラ | /wa/ 和、わ、ワ |
| 加、か、カ | 左、さ、サ | 太、た、タ | 波、は、ハ | |||||||||||
| /i/ イ段 | /i/ 以、い、イ | /ki/ | /gi/ | /si/ | /zi/ | /ti/ | /di/ | /ni/ 仁、に、ニ | /ɸi/ | /bi/ | /mi/ 美、み、ミ | Ø | /ri/ 利、り、リ | /wi/ 爲、ゐ、ヰ |
| 幾、き、キ | 之、し、シ | 知、ち、チ | 比、ひ、ヒ | |||||||||||
| /u/ ウ段 | /u/ 宇、う、ウ | /ku/ | /gu/ | /su/ | /zu/ | /tu/ | /du/ | /nu/ 奴、ぬ、ヌ | /ɸu/ | /bu/ | /mu/ 武、む、ム | /ju/ 由、ゆ、ユ | /ru/ 留、る、ル | Ø |
| 久、く、ク | 寸、す、ス | 川、つ、ツ | 不、ふ、フ | |||||||||||
| /e/ エ段 | /e/ 衣、え、  | /ke/ | /ge/ | /se/ | /ze/ | /te/ | /de/ | /ne/ 禰、ね、ネ | /ɸe/ | /be/ | /me/ 女、め、メ | /je/ 江、𛀁、エ | /re/ 礼、れ、レ | /we/ 惠、ゑ、ヱ |
| 計、け、ケ | 世、せ、セ | 天、て、テ | 部、へ、ヘ | |||||||||||
| /o/ お段 | /o/ 於、お、オ | /ko/ | /go/ | /so/ | /zo/ | /to/ | /do/ | /no/ 乃、の、ノ | /ɸo/ | /bo/ | /mo/ 毛、も、モ | /jo/ 與、よ、ヨ | /ro/ 呂、ろ、ロ | /wo/ 遠、を、ヲ |
| 己、こ、コ | 曽、そ、ソ | 止、と、ト | 保、ほ、ホ | |||||||||||
It is worth noting that theman'yōgana in each cell only indicates one of many contemporary options for spelling each Japanesemora – in the table above, each chosen character is the direct origin of the corresponding modernhiragana. See alsoHentaigana for a fuller description of how multiplehiragana could be used to spell a single sound. Also note that hiragana forms were not standardized at that time.[2]
Althoughman'yōgana specify differentkanji to represent voiced phonemes versus unvoiced phonemes, it is not until theMeiji period that we see standardized usage of thedakuten diacritic゛ to explicitly mark voicing for hiragana and katakana.
Japan officially adopted simplifiedshinjitai (新字体, "new character forms") in 1946 as part of a round oforthographic reforms intended to improve literacy rates. The so-calledkyūjitai (旧字体, "old character forms") are equivalent toTraditional Chinese characters, and these forms were the ones used in historicalman'yōgana. Modern transcriptions of classical texts are predominantly written inshinjitai. To avoid unnecessary ambiguity, quotes from classical texts would be written inkyūjitai.
Additionally, there are many spelling differences betweenModern Japanese and Early Middle Japanese even for the same word. For example,万葉集 is spelled in modern Japanese hiragana asまんようしゅう (man'yōshū), while in Early Middle Japanese, this would have beenまんえふしふ (man'yefushifu). Details on these spelling rules are helpful for understandinghistorical kana usage.
Major phonological changes were characteristic of the period.
The most prominent difference was the loss of certain spelling distinctions found in theJōdai Tokushu Kanazukai ("Ancient Special Kana Usage"), which distinguished two types of/i/,/e/, and/o/. While these distinctions had begun to blur already at the end of theOld Japanese stage, they were completely lost in Early Middle Japanese. The final distinction to be lost was /ko1, go1/ vs. /ko2, go2/.[3] For example, around the year 800 in very early Early Middle Japanese, in the same text /ko1/ was still represented by cursive 「古」, while /ko2/ was represented by cursive 「己」.[4]
In the 10th century,/e/ and/je/ progressively merged into/je/, and/o/ and/wo/ had merged into /wo/ by the 11th century.[5][6][7]
An increase inChinese loanwords had a number of phonological effects:
The development of the uvular nasal and geminated consonants occurred late in the Heian period and brought about the introduction ofclosed syllables (CVC).[10]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||
| Stop | (p) | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | ɸ | s | z | |||||
| Liquid | r | |||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||
Theories for therealization of/s,z/ include[s,z],[ts,dz], and[ɕ,ʑ]. It may have varied depending on the following vowel, as in Modern Japanese.[citation needed]
By the 11th century,/ɸ/ had merged with/w/ between vowels.[11]
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Syntactically, Early Middle Japanese was asubject-object-verb language with atopic-comment structure. Morphologically, it was anagglutinative language.
A paragraph of Early Middle Japanese can be divided into the following units from large to small.
Words were classified as follows:
(Auxiliary) Particles had various functions, and they can be classified as follows:
| Class of particle | Functions | Example (Particle is labeled inred.) |
|---|---|---|
| Case particles 格助詞 | indicating the relationship between a phrase and its following phrase. (i.e. not limited to nouns, so slightly differs from "case" in English) | いづ 方へか 罷りぬる (The Tale of Genji)In which direction of escapehas gone (the bird)? (The verb 「罷る」 is the polite form, i.e.「丁寧語」, of the verb 「行く」"go") |
| Conjunctive particles 接続助詞 | indicating the relationship between clauses. | 文を書きてやれども返り事もせず。(The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) Even though「文を書きてやれ」,but 「返り事もせず」. (「ども」has to be preceded by therealis mood, e.g.,「やれ」is the realis mood of the verb「やる」, to express the appropriate meaning.) |
| Adverbial particles 副助詞 | mainly modifying its following yougen. | ただ浪の白きのみぞ見ゆる (Tosa Nikki) ...can only see (exactly)the white wave (actually, 「のみ」 limits the expressive range of 「見ゆる」) (The verb 「見ゆ」is "bound" by the binding particle 「ぞ」, so it occurs in the attributive form「見ゆる」.) |
| Binding particles 係助詞 | emphasizing its phrase or making it interrogative, and limiting the inflection form of the ending yougen or auxiliary verb. | いづ 方へか 罷りぬる Inwhich direction of escapehas gone (the bird)? (The perfect auxiliary verb「ぬ」is "bound" by the binding particle 「か」, so it occurs in the attributive form 「ぬる」.) |
| Final particles 終助詞 | mainly at the end of sentence, indicating many kinds of moods (e.g. interrogative mood, emotive assertion) | 我はこの比惡きぞかし(Sarashina Nikki) At that time I'mdefinitely not good! (Although the binding particle 「ぞ」 is at the end of sentence, it still requires its preceding words to beattributive.) |
| Interjectory particles 間投助詞 | similar to final particle, but occurs more freely, and is often used as a short stop between sentences. | 朝臣や。さやうの落ち葉をだに拾へ (The Tale of Genji) (Yugiri) Ason!At least pick these kinds of falling leaves up! |
The nominative function was marked by the absence of a particle in main clauses and by the genitive particles in subordinate clauses. The dative/locative particle-ni was homophonous with the simple infinitive form of the copula-ni, with verbal suffixes supplies more complex case markers-ni-te ('at' a place) and-ni si-te or-ni-te ('by means of'). A number of particle + verb +-te sequences provided other case functions:-ni yori-te 'due to' (fromyor- 'depend'), -ni tuki-te 'about, concerning' (fromtuk- 'be attached'), and -to si-te 'as' (fromse- 'do'). More complex structures were derived from genitive particle + Location Noun + appropriate case particle (typically locative-ni) and were used particularly to express spatial and temporal relations. Major location nouns weremafe 'front' (Noun-no mafe-ni 'in front of Noun'),ufe 'top' (Noun-no ufe-ni 'on top of Noun' ~ 'above Noun'),sita 'under' (Noun-no sita-ni 'under Noun),saki 'ahead' (Noun-no saki-ni 'ahead of Noun)', etc.
There were some special particles that limited the inflectional form of the yougen and auxiliary verb at the end of a sentence. These particles are calledbinding particles(係助詞). These limitations are calledbinding rules(係り結びの法則).
| Binding particle | Meaning | Ending form | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| ぞ | emphasis on its phrase | attributive | ふるさとは花ぞ昔の香に匂ひける (Kokin Wakashū, 42th) In (my) hometown, the flowers (still) smellexactly like the scent of the past! attributive of「けり」(Auxiliary verb of emotive assertion) |
| なむ | その竹の中に、もと光る竹なむ一筋ありける (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) Among these bamboos, therewas one bamboothat was shining at root. (However, note that there's norelative pronoun in Japanese even in old times) attributive of「けり」(Auxiliary verb of the past) | ||
| や(やは) | question, or rhetorical question | 春やとき花やおそきと聞きわかむ (Kokin Wakashū, 10th) I listen (to the singing of the nightingale) and try to realize. Is spring tooearly or the flower (blooming) toolate? attributive of adjectives「疾し」("early, fast") and「遲し」 ("late, slow") | |
| か(かは) | 生きとし生けるもの いづれか歌を詠まざりける (Kokin Wakashū, Kana preface) (Among all) living beings, who doesn't write apoem!(or?) attributive of「けり」 | ||
| こそ | strong emphasis on its phrase | realis | 男はこの女をこそ得めと思ふ (The Tales of Ise) (However) the man thought hemust get (married with)that girl. realis of modal auxiliary verb「む」 |
Note that the case particle「と」indicates a preceding quote, and a quote should be considered as anindependent sentence when applying the binding rule.
Susumu Ōno assumed that these binding particles were originallyfinal particles.[13] For example:
Man'yōgana:苦毛 零來雨可 (fromMan'yōshū, 265th)
Modern transliteration:苦しくも 降り来る雨か
Translation: How miserable!Why it starts to rain!
Notice that 「来る」 isattributive(the modification to the noun 「雨」). According to his assumption, if we want to emphasize the noun 「雨」, we can invert the whole sentence as the following:
雨か降り来る
Obviously, this gives birth tothe binding rule. Since other binding particles can also be considered as final particles inOld Japanese, this assumption is reasonable.
Early Middle Japanese verb inflection wasagglutinative. Most verbs were conjugated in6 forms and could be combined with auxiliary verbs to express tense, aspect, mood, voice, andpolarity. Several of the auxiliary verbs could be combined in a string, and each component determined thechoice of form of the preceding component.
In Japanese there are many different yougens with the same pronunciation, or the same yougen has various meanings. To distinguish, modern transliteration usesKanji to highlight these differences. For example, the lower bigrade verbs「慣る」means "get used to", but its also means "become familiar" which is represented by「馴る」. Meanwhile, the quadrigrade verb「成る」has the same pronunciation with 「慣る」but it actually means "become".
Early Middle Japanese inherited all eight verbal conjugations class from Old Japanese and added new one:Lower Monograde, but there's only 「蹴る」("kick by foot") classified as Lower Monograde in Early Middle Japanese.
Early Middle Japanese Verbs were divided into5 class of regular conjugations:
Quadrigrade (四段, yodan), Upper monograde (上一段, kami ichidan), Lower monograde (下一段, shimo ichidan), Upper bigrade (上二段, kami nidan), Lower bigrade (下二段, shimo nidan).
There were also4 "irregular" (変格) conjugations:
K-irregular (カ変, kahen), S-irregular (サ変, sahen), N-irregular (ナ変, nahen), R-irregular (ラ変, rahen).
The conjugation of each is divided into 6 Inflectional forms(活用形):
The English names for the irrealis and the realis differ from author to author, including negative and evidential, or imperfective and perfective.
In following table, red part meansstem, while blue part meansInflectional suffix.
| Inflectional class 活用の種類 | stem 語幹 | Inflectional form 活用形 | Translation | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Irrealis 未然形 | Infinitive 連用形 | Conclusive 終止形 | Attributive 連体形 | Realis 已然形 | Imperative 命令形 | |||
| Quadrigrade 四段 | 聞 | きか (-a) | きき (-i) | きく (-u) | きけ (-e) | 'hear' | ||
| Upper Monograde 上一段 | - | み (-i) | 見る (-iru) | みれ (-ire) | みよ (-i[yo]) | 'see' | ||
| 用 | もちゐ | もちゐる | もちゐれ | もちゐよ | 'use' | |||
| Lower Monograde 下一段 | - | け (-e) | 蹴る (-eru) | けれ (-ere) | けよ (-e[yo]) | 'kick' | ||
| Upper Bigrade 上二段 | 過 | すぎ (-i) | すぐ (-u) | すぐる (-uru) | すぐれ (-ure) | すぎよ (-iyo) | 'pass' | |
| Lower Bigrade 下二段 | 受 | うけ (-e) | うく (-u) | うくる (-uru) | うくれ (-ure) | うけよ (-e[yo]) | 'receive' | |
| K-irregular カ変 | - | こ (-o) | き (-i) | 来 (-u) | くる (-uru) | くれ (-ure) | こ (-o) | 'come' |
| S-irregular サ変 | - | せ (-e) | し (-i) | 爲 (-u) | する (-uru) | すれ (-ure) | せよ (-e[yo]) | 'do' |
| 期 | きせ | きし | きす | きする | きすれ | きせよ | 'set the date' * | |
| N-irregular ナ変 | 死 | しな (-a) | しに (-i) | しぬ (-u) | しぬる (-uru) | しぬれ (-ure) | しね (-e) | 'die' |
| R-irregular ラ変 | 有 | あら (-a) | あり (-i) | ある (-u) | あれ (-e) | 'be, exist' | ||
*Noted that most S-irregular is the combination of a noun and 「爲」, for example, 「期す」 is a combination of the noun 「期」 ('date') and 「爲」.
The 「よ」 at the end of the imperative forms is optional, although exceedingly common.
The system of 9 conjugation classes appears to be complex. However, all nine conjugations can be subsumed into variations of two groups:
The irregularity of N-irregular verbs occurred only in the conclusive and the attributive, and as there are no quadrigrade verbs withn-roots, quadrigrade and N-irregular verb patterns may be treated as being incomplementary distribution.[14] Vowel-root verbs consist of bigrade verbs (the majority), a few monograde verbs (especially見る 'see' and居る 'sit'), the K-irregular verb来 'come', and the S-irregular verbse- 'do' (or -ze- in some compounds).[15] The difference between 'upper' and 'lower' bigrade or monograde verbs is whether the vowel at the end of the root wasi ore. The difference between bigrade and monograde was whether in the conclusive, attributive, and realis, the initialu of the ending elided the vowel of the root or the vowel of the roots elides the initialu of the ending.
There are some questions about this arrangement of forms:[16]
Man'yōgana: 之婆之婆美等母 安加無伎禰加毛 (Man'yōshū, 4503th)
Modern transliteration:しばしば見とも、飽かむ君かも
It is possible that the monograde verb infinitive formmi above that was used before 「とも」 was the earlier true conclusive form. Alternatively, the form above may have been an instance ofpoetic contraction to limit the number ofmorae on the line to the expected seven.
Auxiliary verbs are attached to the various forms of yougen, and a yougen could be followed by several such endings in a string. Auxiliary verbs are classified into many inflectional class like verbs.
Generally, to learn how to use an Auxiliary verb, we need to know (1)its inflection, (2)required forms of its preceding word, and (3) various function. The following is a detail example about 「る」and 「らる」.
| Inflectional Class 活用の種類 | Irrealis 未然形 | Infinitive 連用形 | Conclusive 終止形 | Attributive 連体形 | Realis 已然形 | Imperative 命令形 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower Bigrade 下二段 | れ (-e) | る (-u) | るる (-uru) | るれ (-ure) | れよ (-u[yo]) | |
| られ (-e) | らる (-u) | らるる (-uru) | らるれ (-ure) | られよ (-u[yo]) | ||
「る」 requires to be preceded byirrealiswith-a ending (i.e. quadrigrade, N-irregular and R-irregular), while 「らる」requiresirrealiswithout-a ending(i.e. other classes).
They have 4 different functions.
Voice: 'passive' and 'causative':
Polarity:[25]
There were two types of adjectives: regularadjectives andadjectival nouns.
The regular adjective was subdivided into two types: those for which the adverbial form ended in 「-く」(-ku) and those that ended in 「-しく」(-siku).
| Class of inflection | subclass | stem 語幹 | Irrealis 未然形 | Adverbial 連用形 | Conclusive 終止形 | Attributive 連体形 | Realis 已然形 | Imperative 命令形 | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ku ク活用 | (main) 本活用 | 高 | (たかく /たかけ) | たかく (-ku) | たかし (-si) | たかき (-ki) | たかけれ (-kere) | 'be high' | |
| (-kari) カリ活用 | たかから (-kara) | たかかり (-kari) | たかかり (-kari) | たかかる (-karu) | たかかれ (-kare) | たかかれ (-kare) | |||
| -siku シク活用 | (main) 本活用 | 美 | (うつくしく /うつくしけ) | うつくしく (-siku) | うつくし (-si) | うつくしき (-siki) | うつくしけれ (-sikere) | 'be beautiful' | |
| (-kari) カリ活用 | うつくしから (-sikara) | うつくしかり (-sikari) | うつくしかり (-sikari) | うつくしかる (-sikaru) | うつくしかれ (-sikare) | うつくしかれ (-sikare) |
The class of siku-adjectives included a few adjectives that had 「-じ」(-z), rather than 「-し」:
| Class of inflection | subclass | stem 語幹 | Irrealis 未然形 | Adverbial 連用形 | Conclusive 終止形 | Attributive 連体形 | Realis 已然形 | Imperative 命令形 | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -siku シク活用 | main 本活用 | 同 | (-じく) | -じく | -じ | -じき | -じけれ | 'be the same' | |
| kari カリ活用 | -じから | -じかり | -じかり | -じかる | -じかれ | -じかれ |
They usually had 「-じ」 rather than 「-じき」 in itsattributive form.
The -kar- and -sikar- forms (カリ活用) were derived from the verb 「有り」"be, exists.":
Man'yōgana: 可奈之久安里家牟 (Man'yōshū, 4333th)
Modern transliteration:悲しくありけむ
Since the auxiliary verb of pass tentative mood「けむ」needs to be preceded by infinitive, 「あり」is in infinitive form. And then naturally, the adjective 「悲し」links to 「あり」 by infinitive (連用形). InMan'yōshū there's also example of 「-かり」.
Man'yōgana: 加奈之可利家理 (Man'yōshū, 793th)
Modern transliteration:悲しかりけり
Since the auxiliary verb of unwitnessed past「けり」needs to be preceded by infinitive, 「悲し」is in infinitive form.
So it's reasonable to assume that the infinitive suffix「-かり」is derived from 「-くあり」that had lost its initial u-sound(i.e. sound change of infinitive suffix + 「あり」). There's also similar example about other forms inMan'yōshū.[26]
From above paragraph, we can realize that kari inflectionis generally used to link to an auxiliary verbs(so it's also called 「補助活用」, "complement and auxiliary inflection"), but there's an example to show that the imperative form of kari inflection is an exception of this rule:
はげしかれとは (Senzai Wakashū, 708th)
That is, the imperative form of kari inflectionis independently used without linking to any auxiliary verb.(However, it actually expresses a wish but not an order.)
| Class of inflection | stem 語幹 | Irrealis 未然形 | Adverbial 連用形 | Conclusive 終止形 | Attributive 連体形 | Realis 已然形 | Imperative 命令形 | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nari ナリ活用 | 静か | しづかなら(-nara) | しづかなり(-nari) | しづかなり(-nari) | しづかなる(-naru) | しづかなれ(-nare) | 'be static' | |
| しづかに(-ni) | ||||||||
| Tari タリ活用 | 悄然* | 悄然たら(-tara) | 悄然たり(-tari) | 悄然たり(-tari) | 悄然たる(-taru) | 悄然たれ(-tare) | ''be quiet, soft" | |
| 悄然と(-to) | ||||||||
*The Japanese term悄然 (seuzen, modernshōzen) is a borrowing fromMiddle Chinese word悄然 with reconstructed pronunciation/tsʰjɑunʑǐɛn/,[27] meaning ‘quietly, softly’. Like悄然 (seuzen), mosttari adjectives are derived from Chinese borrowings.
Thenari andtari inflections shared a similar etymology. Thenari form was a contraction of the adverbial particle「に」and the-r irregular verb「有り」"be, exist":に +あり →なり, while thetari inflection was a contraction of the adverbial particleと and有り:と +あり →たり.
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