| Old Japanese | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Region | Japan |
| Era | 8th century |
Early form | |
| Man'yōgana | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ojp |
ojp[a] | |
| Glottolog | oldj1239 |
| 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. | |
Old Japanese (上代日本語,Jōdai Nihon-go) is the oldest attested stage of theJapanese language, recorded in documents from theNara period (8th century). It becameEarly Middle Japanese in the succeedingHeian period.Old Japanese is an early member of theJaponic language family. No genetic links to other language families have been proven.
The bulk of the Old Japanese corpus consists of poetry, especially theMan'yōshū, with a smaller number of formal prose works. These texts were written usingman'yōgana, a writing system that employsChinese characters assyllabograms 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 anagglutinative language with asubject–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.
Old Japanese is usually defined as the language of theNara period (710–794), when the capital wasHeijō-kyō (nowNara).[1][2]That is the period of the earliest connected texts in Japanese, the 112 songs included in theKojiki (712).The other major literary sources of the period are the 128 songs included in theNihon Shoki (720) and theMan'yōshū (c. 759), a compilation of over 4,500 poems.[3][4]Shorter samples are 25 poems in theFudoki (720) and the 21 poems of theBussokuseki-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 27Norito ('liturgies') recorded in theEngishiki (compiled in 927) and the 62Senmyō (literally 'announced order', meaning imperial edicts) recorded in theShoku 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 theRecords 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 theSuda Hachiman Shrine Mirror, theInariyama Sword, and theEta Funayama Sword.Those inscriptions are written inClassical Chinese but contain several Japanese names that were transcribed phonetically using Chinese characters.[8][9]Such inscriptions became more common from theSuiko period (592–628).[10]Those fragments are usually considered a form of Old Japanese.[11]
Of the 10,000 paper records kept atShōsōin, only two, dating from about 762, are in Old Japanese.[12]Over 150,000 wooden tablets (mokkan) 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]
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 theKojiki andNihon Shoki, the script was brought by scholars fromBaekje (southwestern Korea).[14]The earliest texts found in Japan were written inClassical Chinese, probably by immigrant scribes.Later "hybrid" texts show the influence ofJapanese grammar, such as theword 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 intoman'yōgana, a complete script for the language that used Chinese characters phonetically, which was the ancestor of modernkana syllabaries.[16]This system was already in use in the verse parts of theKojiki (712) and theNihon Shoki (720).[17][18]
For example, the first line of the first poem in theKojiki was written with five characters:[19][20]
| 夜 | 久 | 毛 | 多 | 都 | |
| Middle Chinese[b] | yae | kjuw | maw | ta | tu |
| Old Japanese | ya-kumo1 | tatu | |||
| eight-cloud | rise.ADN | ||||
| 'many clouds rising' | |||||
This method of writing Japanese syllables by using characters for their Chinese sounds (ongana) was supplemented with indirect methods in the complex mixed script of theMan'yōshū (c. 759).[21][22][23]
Inman'yōgana, 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 theKojiki songs:[24][25]
| a阿 | ka加,迦 | ga賀 | sa佐 | za邪 | ta多 | da陀 | na那 | pa波 | ba婆 | ma麻 | ya夜 | ra良 | wa和 |
| i伊 | ki1岐 | gi1芸 | si斯,志 | zi士 | ti知 | di遅 | ni爾,迩 | pi1比 | bi1毘 | mi1美 | ri理 | wi韋 | |
| ki2紀 | gi2疑 | pi2斐 | bi2備 | mi2微 | |||||||||
| u宇 | ku久 | gu具 | su須 | zu受 | tu都 | du豆 | nu奴 | pu布 | bu夫 | mu牟 | yu由 | ru流 | |
| e亜 | ke1祁 | ge1牙 | se勢,世 | ze是 | te弖 | de傅 | ne泥 | pe1弊 | be1辨 | me1賣 | ye延 | re禮 | we恵 |
| ke2気 | ge2宜 | pe2閇 | be2倍 | me2米 | |||||||||
| o淤,意 | ko1古 | go1胡,呉 | so1蘇 | zo1俗,蘇 | to1斗 | do1度 | no1怒 | po富,本 | bo煩 | mo1毛 | yo1用 | ro1漏,路 | wo袁,遠 |
| ko2許 | go2碁 | so2曾 | zo2叙 | to2登 | do2杼 | no2能 | mo2母 | yo2余,與 | ro2呂 |
Shinkichi Hashimoto discovered in 1917 that many syllables that have a moderni,e oro occurred in two forms, termed typesA (甲,kō) andB (乙,otsu).[24][26]These are denoted by subscripts 1 and 2 respectively in the above table. The syllablesmo1 andmo2 are not distinguished in the slightly laterNihon Shoki andMan'yōshū, reducing the syllable count to 87.[27][28]Some authors also believe that two forms ofpo were distinguished in theKojiki.[29]All of these pairs had merged in the Early Middle Japanese of the Heian period.[30][31]
The consonantsg,z,d,b andr 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 whereyi andwu might be expected, as in later forms of Japanese.Alexander Vovin argues that the non-initial syllablesi andu in words such askai 'oar',ko2i 'to lie down',kui 'to regret' (with conclusivekuyu),oi 'to age' anduuru, the adnominal form of the verbuwe 'to plant', should be read as Old Japanese syllablesyi andwu.[35]
| - | k- | g- | s- | z- | t- | d- | n- | p- | b- | m- | y- | r- | w- | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -a | 4612 | 7616 | 3358 | 3473 | 255 | 5212 | 734 | 5891 | 6450 | 2195 | 6018 | 3184 | 4213 | 2581 |
| -i1 | 3679 | 5771 | 762 | 8070 | 350 | 2195 | 335 | 7101 | 3489 | 585 | 5818 | 3901 | 270 | |
| -i2 | 690 | 404 | 756 | 140 | 589 | |||||||||
| -u | 1556 | 4855 | 444 | 2507 | 904 | 4417 | 1065 | 1449 | 2905 | 389 | 2692 | 2190 | 3656 | |
| -e1 | 45 | 1145 | 13 | 1220 | 210 | 2831 | 727 | 1425 | 1101 | 203 | 318 | 644 | 2598 | 342 |
| -e2 | 1011 | 489 | 959 | 287 | 1406 | |||||||||
| -o1 | 2441 | 1995 | 138 | 536 | 8 | 485 | 269 | 583 | 1870 | 75 | 7788 | 871 | 215 | 3657 |
| -o2 | 3407 | 436 | 1206 | 122 | 5848 | 882 | 9618 | 1312 | 1177 |
The rare voweli2 almost always occurred at the end of a morpheme.Most occurrences ofe1,e2 ando1 were also at the end of a morpheme.[37]
Themokkan 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,
Several different notations for the type A/B distinction are found in the literature, including:[39][40][41]
| index notation | i1 | i2 | e1 | e2 | o1 | o2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kindaichi, Miller, Tōdō | i | ï | e | ë | o | ö |
| Vovin | i | ï | e | ɛ | o | ə |
| modified Mathias–Miller | î | ï | ê | ë | ô | ö |
| Yale (Martin) | yi | iy | ye | ey | wo | o̠ |
| Unger, Frellesvig and Whitman | i | wi | ye | e | wo | o |
There is no consensus on the pronunciation of the syllables distinguished byman'yōgana.[42]One difficulty is that theMiddle Chinese pronunciations of the characters used are also disputed, and since the reconstruction of their phonetic values is partly based on laterSino-Japanese pronunciations, there is a danger ofcircular reasoning.[43]Additional evidence has been drawn from phonologicaltypology, subsequent developments in the Japanese pronunciation, and the comparative study of theRyukyuan languages.[44]
Miyake reconstructed the following consonant inventory:[45]
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Obstruent | voiceless | *p | *t | *s | *k | |
| voicedprenasalized | *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 textbookCh'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 beforee andi.[47]
Comparative evidence from Ryukyuan languages suggests that Old Japanesep reflected an earliervoiceless bilabial stop *p.[48]There is general agreement that word-initialp had become avoiceless bilabial fricative[ɸ] byEarly Modern Japanese, as suggested by its transcription asf in later Portuguese works and asph orhw in the Korean textbookCh'ŏphae Sinŏ. In Modern Standard Japanese, it is romanized ash and has differentallophones before various vowels. In medial position, it became[w] in Early Middle Japanese and has since disappeared except beforea.[49]Many scholars, followingShinkichi Hashimoto, argue thatp had already lenited to[ɸ] by the Old Japanese period, but Miyake argues that it was still a stop.[50]
The Chinese characters chosen to write syllables with the Old Japanese vowela suggest that it was anopen unrounded vowel/a/.[51]The vowelu was aclose 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 inman'yōgana. The issue is hotly debated, and there is no consensus.[39] The traditional view, first advanced byKyōsuke 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 finalglides/j/ and/w/.[54][40] Thediphthong proposals are often connected to hypotheses about pre-Old Japanese, but all exhibit an uneven distribution of glides.[40]
| i1 | i2 | e1 | e2 | o1 | o2 | Author |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i | wi | e | we | wo | o | Kikusawa (1935) |
| i | ï | e | ë | o | ö | Kindaichi (1938), Miller (1967) |
| i | ïj | e | əj | o | ə | Arisaka (1955) |
| ji | i | je | e | o | ɵ | Hattori (1958) |
| ji | i | je | e | wo | o | Lange (1968, 1973) |
| i | wi | je | e | wo | o | Unger (1977), Frellesvig and Whitman (2008) |
| i | ï | e | ɛ | o | ɵ | Ōno (1982) |
| i | ɨ | e | əj | o | ə | Miyake (2003) |
The distinction betweenmo1 andmo2 was seen only inKojiki and vanished afterwards.The distribution of syllables suggests that there may have once been *po1, *po2, *bo1 and *bo2.[28]If that was true, a distinction was made betweenCo1 andCo2 for all consonants C except forw. Some take that as evidence thatCo1 may have representedCwo.[citation needed]
Although modernJapanese dialects havepitch accent systems, they were usually not shown inman'yōgana. However, in one part of theNihon Shoki, the Chinese characters appeared to have been chosen to represent a pitch pattern similar to that recorded in theRuiju Myōgishō, a dictionary that was compiled in the late 11th century. In that section, a low-pitch syllable was represented by a character with theMiddle Chinese level tone, and a high pitch was represented by a character with one of the other threeMiddle Chinese tones.(A similar division was used in thetone patterns of Chinese poetry, which were emulated by Japanese poets in the lateAsuka period.)Thus, it appears that the Old Japanese accent system was similar to that of Early Middle Japanese.[55]
Old Japanese words consisted of one or moreopen syllables of the form (C)V, subject to additional restrictions:
In 1934,Arisaka Hideyo 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 earliervowel harmony, but it is very different from patterns that are observed in, for example, theTurkic languages.[57]
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:
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]
The exception to this rule occurred when the first of the adjacent vowels was the sole vowel of a monosyllabic morpheme (usually aclitic), in which case the other vowel was deleted:[66][67]
Cases where both outcomes are found are attributed to different analyses of morpheme boundaries:[66][69]
Internal reconstruction suggests that the stage preceding Old Japanese had fewer consonants and vowels.[73]
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]
In some cases, such astubu 'grain',kadi 'rudder' andpi1za '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 Japanesew andy derive, respectively, from *b and *d at some point before the oldest inscriptions in the 6th century.[76]Southern Ryukyuan varieties such asMiyako,Yaeyama andYonaguni have/b/ corresponding to Old Japanesew, but only Yonaguni (at the far end of the chain) has/d/ where Old Japanese hasy:[77]
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]
As seen in§ Morphophonemics, many occurrences of the rare vowelsi2,e1,e2 ando1 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,sake2 'rice wine' has the formsaka- in compounds such assakaduki 'sake cup'.[82][83]The following alternations are the most common:
The widely accepted analysis of this situation is that the most common Old Japanese vowelsa,u,i1 ando2 reflect earlier *a, *u, *i and *ə respectively, and the other vowels reflect fusions of these vowels:[87]
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 particlei (whose function is also uncertain), and another being a weakened consonant (suggested by proposed Korean cognates).[88]
There are also alternations suggestinge2 < *əi, such asse2/so2- 'back' andme2/mo2- 'bud'.[82]Some authors believe that they belong to an earlier layer thani2 < *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 yieldse in Ryukyuan languages.[90]
Some instances of word-finale1 ando1 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 withEastern 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 toi1 andu, respectively, in central Old Japanese.[92][93]The mid vowels are also found in some earlymokkan and in some modern Japanese dialects.[94]
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]
Old Japanese includepersonal pronouns,demonstratives and an isolatedinterrogative pronounnani 'what'.[98]Many pronouns have both a short form and a longer form with attached-re 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 thegenitive markerga, in contrast to the markerno2 used with demonstratives and nouns.[100]
Demonstratives often distinguish proximal (to the speaker) and non-proximal forms marked withko2- andso2- respectively.Many forms have corresponding interrogative formsi(du)-.[102]
| Proximal | Non-proximal | Interrogative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominal | ko2(re) | so2 | idu(re) |
| Location | ko2ko2 | so2ko2 | iduku |
| Direction | ko2ti | so2ti | iduti |
| Degree | ko2kV- | so2kV- | iku- |
| Manner | ka | sate | – |
| kaku | sika | ika | |
| Time | – | – | itu |
In Early Middle Japanese, the non-proximalso- forms were reinterpreted as hearer-based (medial), and the speaker-based forms were divided into proximalko- forms and distalka-/a- forms, yielding the three-way distinction that is still found in Modern Japanese.[104]
In later texts, such as theMan'yōshū, numerals are sometimes written using Chinese logographs, which give no indication of pronunciation.[105]The following numerals are attested phonographically:[106]
| 1pi1to2 | 10to2wo | 100mo1mo1 | 1000ti | 10,000yo2ro2du |
| 2puta | 20pata | |||
| 3mi1 | 30mi1so1 | |||
| 4yo2 | 40yo2so1 | |||
| 5itu | 50 (iso1) | 500ipo | ||
| 6mu | ||||
| 7nana | 70 (nanaso1) | |||
| 8ya | 80yaso1 | 800yapo | ||
| 9ko2ko2no |
The forms for 50 and 70 are known only from Heian texts.[107]
There is a single example of a phonographically recorded compound number, inBussokuseki 2:[108]
mi1so-ti
thirty-CL
amar-i
exceed-INF
puta-tu
two-CL
no2
katati
mark
mi1so-ti amar-i puta-tu no2 katati
thirty-CL exceed-INF two-CL GEN mark
'thirty-two marks'
This example uses theclassifiers-ti (used with tens and hundreds) and-tu (used with digits and hundreds).[109]
The only attested ordinal numeral ispatu 'first'.[110]InClassical 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]
Theclassifier 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:-tu (used with digits and hundreds),-ti (used with tens and hundreds),-ri (for people),-moto2,-pe1 (for grassy plants) and-ri (for days).[113]Many ordinary nouns can also be used either freely or as classifiers.[112]
Old Japanese nominal prefixes include honorificmi-, intensivema- fromma 'truth', diminutive or affectionatewo- and a prefixsa- of uncertain function.[114]
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-purposera and two markers restricted to animate nouns,do2mo2 (limited to five words) andtati.[117]
The main case particles are[118]
The subject of a sentence is usually not marked.[122]There are a few cases in theSenmyō of subjects of active verbs marked with a suffix-i, which is thought to be an archaism that was obsolete in the Old Japanese period.[123][124]
Old Japanese has a richer system of verbal suffixes than later forms of Japanese.[125]Old Japanese verbs useinflection formodal andconjunctional purposes.[126]Other categories, such asvoice,tense,aspect andmood, are expressed by using optional suffixedauxiliaries, which are also inflected:[127]
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 (katsuyōkei,活用形) from which all the others may be derived in a similar fashion to theprincipal parts used forLatin and other languages:[129]
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.[141]It also fails to capture some inflected forms.[142]However, five of the forms are basic inflected verb forms, and the system also describes almost all extended forms consistently.[143]
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.[144]
Three of the classes are grouped as consonant bases:[145]
| Verb class | Irrealis | Infinitive | Conclusive | Adnominal | Exclamatory | Imperative | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| quadrigrade | kaka- | kaki1 | kaku | kaku | kake2 | kake1 | 'write' |
| n-irregular | sina- | sini | sinu | sinuru | sinure | sine | 'die' |
| r-irregular | ara- | ari | ari | aru | are | are | 'be, exist' |
The distinctions betweeni1 andi2 and betweene1 ande2 are eliminated afters,z,t,d,n,y,r andw.
There are five vowel-base conjugation classes:
Early Middle Japanese also has aShimo ichidan (lower monograde ore-monograde) category, consisting of a single verbkwe- 'kick', which reflects the Old Japanese lower bigrade verbkuwe-.[152][153][154][155]
| Verb class | Irrealis | Infinitive | Conclusive | Adnominal | Exclamatory | Imperative | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| e-bigrade | ake2- | ake2 | aku | akuru | akure | ake2(yo2) | 'open' |
| i-bigrade | oki2- | oki2 | oku | okuru | okure | oki2(yo2) | 'arise' |
| monograde | mi1- | mi1 | mi1ru | mi1ru | mi1re | mi1(yo2) | 'see' |
| k-irregular | ko2- | ki1 | ku | kuru | kure | ko2 | 'come' |
| s-irregular | se- | si | su | suru | sure | se(yo2) | 'do' |
The bigrade verbs seem to belong to a later layer than other verbs.[156]Manye-bigrade verbs aretransitive orintransitive counterparts of consonant-base verbs.[157]In contrast,i-bigrade verbs tend to be intransitive.[158]Some bigrade bases also appear to reflect pre-Old-Japanese adjectives with vowel stems combined with aninchoative *-i suffix:[159][160][161]
Old Japanese has two copulas with limited and irregular conjugations:
| Infinitive | Adnominal | Gerund |
|---|---|---|
| ni | no2 | nite |
| to2 | tu |
Thetu form had a limited distribution in Old Japanese, and disappeared in Early Middle Japanese. In later Japanese, thenite form becamede, but these forms have otherwise endured to modern Japanese.[164]
Japanese has used verbal prefixes conveying emphasis at all stages, but Old Japanese also has prefixes expressing grammatical functions, such as reciprocal or cooperativeapi1- (fromap- 'meet, join'), stativeari- (fromar- 'exist'), potentiale2- (frome2- 'get') and prohibitivena-, which is often combined with a suffix-so2.[96][165]
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.[166]Many of these disappeared in later stages of the language.[167]
Tense and aspect are indicated by suffixes attached to the infinitive.[168]The tense suffixes are:
The perfective suffixes are-n- and-te-.[176][177]During theLate Middle Japanese period, the tense and aspect suffixes were replaced with a single past-tense suffix-ta, derived from-te +ar- 'exist' >-tar-.[125][178]However, the Hachijō language retains some of the early tense and aspect system, in particular reflexes of the old past suffix-si and the distinction between-te ar- andar- forms.[179]
Other auxiliaries are attached to the irrealis stem:
The honorific and iterative ceased to be productive in Middle Japanese.[167]During the Early Middle Japanese period, the causative-(a)sime- was replaced by-(a)sase-.[191]
Old Japanese adjectives were originally nominals and, unlike in later periods, can be used uninflected to modify following nouns.[192][193]They can also take a suffix-ku (an adjectival copula), formingstative verbs conjugated in two classes:[194][195]
| Class | Stem | Infinitive | Conclusive | Adnominal | Exclamatory | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ku | kata | kataku | katasi | kataki1 | katasa | 'hard' |
| -siku | kusi | kusiku | kusi | kusiki1 | kusisa | 'precious' |
The second class, with stems ending in-si, differs only in the conclusive form, whose suffix-si was dropped byhaplology.[198]Adjectives of this class tend to express more subjective qualities.[199]Many of them were formed from a verbal stem by the addition of a suffix-si of uncertain origin.[200]
Towards the end of the Old Japanese period, a more expressive conjugation was formed by adding the verbar- 'be' to the infinitive, with the sequence-ua- reducing to-a-:[195]
| Irrealis | Infinitive | Adnominal | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| katakara- | katakari | katakaru | 'hard' |
Manyadjectival nouns of Early Middle Japanese were based on Old Japanese adjectives that were formed with suffixes-ka,-raka or-yaka.[202][203]
As in later forms of Japanese, Old Japanese word order is predominantlysubject–object–verb, with adjectives and adverbs preceding the nouns and verbs they modify andauxiliary verbs andparticles consistently appended to the main verb.[204]
ositeru
push.shine.ADN
nanipa
Naniwa
no2
mi1ya
palace
ni
wa
go2
opo-ki1mi1
great-lord
kuni
land
rasi
ositeru nanipa no2 mi1ya ni wa go2 opo-ki1mi1 kuni sir-asu rasi
push.shine.ADN Naniwa GEN palace LOC 1S GEN great-lord land rule-HON.CONCL PRES
'In the shining Naniwa palace, my lord might rule the land.' (Man'yōshū 6.933)
Questions, exclamations and prohibitives are marked usingparticles, either in the middle of the sentence or at the end, while imperatives are marked by conjugating the verb.[205]
Old Japanese makes extensive use of afocus construction, known askakari-musubi ('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.[206]The marked constituent is also typically fronted in comparison with its position in a corresponding declarative sentence.[207]The semantic effect (though not the syntactic structure) is often similar to acleft sentence in English:[208]
wa
ga
ko1puru
love.ADN
ki1mi1
lord
so2
ki1zo
last.night
no2
yo1
night
ime2
dream
ni
wa ga ko1puru ki1mi1so2 ki1zo no2 yo1 ime2 ni mi1-ye-turu
1S GEN love.ADN lord FOC last.night GEN night dream DAT see-PASS-PERF.ADN
'It was my beloved lord that I saw last night in a dream.' (Man'yōshū 2.150)
The particles involved are
The focus construction is also common inClassical Japanese, but disappeared after the Early Middle Japanese period.[217]It is still found in Ryukyuan languages, but is much less common there than in Old Japanese.[218]
The nominal form of a verb, marked with-aku, forms a nominalized clause.[219][220]The following example has a nominal clause within an adverbial clause marked with the infinitive form:[221][222]
wa
1s
ga
ko2ko2-da
this-much
sino1paku
yearn.NMNL
poto2to2gi1su
cuckoo
idu-pe1
which-side
no
yama
mountain
wo
naki1
cry.INF
ka
ko1yu
cross.CONCL
wa ga ko2ko2-da sino1paku sira-ni poto2to2gi1su idu-pe1 no yama wo naki1 ka ko1yu ramu
1s GEN this-much yearn.NMNL know-NEG.INF cuckoo which-side GEN mountain ACC cry.INF INT cross.CONCL CONJC.ADN
'Not knowing how much I yearn, where will the cuckoo cross the mountains, crying?' (Man'yōshū 19.4195)
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.[219][223]
Although most Old Japanese writing represents the language of theNara court in central Japan, some sources come from eastern Japan:[224][225][226][227]
They record Eastern Old Japanese dialects,[229] with several differences from central Old Japanese (also known as Western Old Japanese):
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