JPN494/598: History of the Japanese Language

1. JPN494/598: History of the Japanese Language Basic concepts in historical linguistics

2. Basic Concepts in Historical Linguistics • synchronic vs. diachronic studies • dia- (through) + chronos (time) + -ic • Diachronic linguistics is concerned with change in language or languages over time. • Synchronic linguistics deals with a language at a single point of time.

3. philology: (i) historical linguistics, the historical study of language; (ii) the study of old written documents, linguistic studies based on old writings

4. etymology: (the study of) historical origins of individual words • 稲荷寿司 (いなりずし) • 面白い (おもしろい) • glamour < ‘grammar’ cf. folk-etymology • デマ (‘false rumor’) < でまかせ? • asparagus < sparrow-grass?

5. (ク語法) “見らく少なく恋ふらくの多き” • 見らく (‘見ること’), 恋ふらく(‘恋いること’),清けく (‘清いこと’) • 見る + あく (miru + aku) ? • 恋ふる + あく (kouru + aku) ? • 清き + あく (kiyoki + aku)? • あく = ‘こと、ところ’ • あくがる (Mod J: あこがれる ‘to admire, to be attracted to’ )

6. Varieties of Linguistic Changes • Domain: Sound, Syntactic, and Lexical Changes, etc. • Cause: Analogy, Borrowing,etc. (or no obvious cause)

7. Sound changes • Regular Changes • conditioned or unconditioned? • phonemic or not? (e.g. whether they lead to a change of the phonemic system) • Sporadic Changes

8. Two major types of sounds • Consonants: speech-sounds produced when the speaker either stops or severely constricts the airflow in the vocal tract. • Vowels: speech-sounds produced with a relatively open vocal tract, which functions as a resonating chamber.

9. Consonants • Place(s) of Articulation: • lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft palate), … • Manner of Articulation • stops (plosives), fricatives, affricates, approximants, … • Voicing (Phonation) • voiced vs. voiceless

10. Vowels • Three major parameters that characterize a vowel: • How wide the mouth is open(or, how high the tongue is) (open, open-mid, close-mid, close) • How forward the tongue position is (front, central, back) • The shape of the lips (rounded, spread) • Simple vowels (monophthong) can be combined to form a diphthong (e.g. English [aɪ] as in I am …) or triphthong.

11. Web resources • The original IPA chart: (http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html) • “Pronounceable” IPA chart with sound files: • (http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm) (U of Victoria) • (http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html) (UCLA)

14. Plosives (Stops): complete closure of the articulators, which blocks the air stream through the mouth. • Nasals: the same as plosives but with airflow through the nasal cavity & nostrils. • Fricatives: close approximation of two articulators; the airstream is partially obstructed and turbulent airflow is produced • Affricates: continuous sequences of plosives and fricatives

15. Taps (Flaps): a quick contact of two articulators (e.g. the tongue and the alveolar ridge) • Trills: repeated quick contacts of articulators • Approximants: A gesture in which one articulator is close to another, but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced. • (Lateral: the tongue is in contact with the upper structure of the mouth.)

16. Regular sound change: a kind of change that takes place whenever the sound or sounds which undergo the change are found in the circumstances or environments that condition the change.

17. Conditioned vs. unconditioned sound changes • p > b / V _ V (Latin to Spanish) • capillus > cabello, caput > cabo, … • pater > padre, professio > profesión, … •  > j (in many dialects of Spanish) • calle: [kae] > [kaje], llamar: [amar] > [jamar] • halla ‘find’ vs. haya ‘have (subj.)’

18. Merger, loss, split of sounds (phonemes) • Certain (regular) sound changes affect the phonemic system of a language, while certain others don’t. • Phonology vs. Phonetics • Phonetics deals with linguistic sounds as physical objects (phones). • Phonology deals with linguistic sounds as units of meaningful expressions (phonemes).

19. Phonetics vs. Phonology • pin [phɪn], spin [spɪn], pop [phɑp] • [ph] vs. [p]: “different” or “same”? • They are different from the phonetic perspective, but the same from the phonological perspective. • [ph] and [p] are allophones of the same phoneme, /p/ (in English).

20. Notational Convention • phonetic description: […] (e.g. [phɪn]) • phonological (phonemic) description: /…/ (e.g. /pɪn/)

21. Complementary distribution • Complementary distribution: allophones do not occur in the same phonological environment • OK: pin [phɪn], spin [spɪn] • ??: pin [pɪn], spin [sphɪn] • Pairs of expressions that have different meanings and that differ in only one sound (phone) are called minimal pairs; they can be used to show that two phones are not allophones of the same phoneme. • pin: bin • hit : heat

22. Allophones in one language are not necessarily allophones in another language. • [p] and [ph ] are considered the “same” in English (phonologically). • But they are not in some other languages • 비 [pi] ‘rain’ vs. 피[phi] ‘blood’ (Korean)

23. The inventory of phonemes of a given language may expand or shrink through historical change. • (Not all sound changes, on the other hand, affect the number of phonemes in the language.)

24. // and /j/ merged (into /j/) in many dialects of Spanish • halla ‘find’ vs. haya ‘have (subj.)’ • /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ merged (into /ɑ/) for many speakers of American English (e.g. law vs. la, cot vs. caught)

25. Sporadic (non-regular) sound changes: • E.g.: • けむり [kemuri] ‘smoke’ < けぶり [keburi] • たき [taki] ‘water fall’ < たぎ [tagi]

26. Syntactic Change • The Wycliff Bible (14th century; middle English): And a litil aftir, they that stooden camen, and seiden to Petir, treuli thou art of hem for thi speche makith thee knowun.

27. The King James Bible (1611; early modern E.): And after a while came vnto him they that stood by, and saide to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee. • The New English Bible (1961; modern E.): Shortly afterwards the bystanders came up and said to Peter, ‘Surely you are another of them; your accent gives you away!’

28. Lexical changes • The vocabulary (the collection of words) of a language may acquire new members through: • borrowing • coining • gas, smog • (to) xerox, guillotine, canary • radar (< radio direction and ranging), VCR (< video casette recorder) (acronym/alphabetism)

29. Words may be lost; sometimes they are replaced by new words; sometimes they simply become obsolete along with the concepts associated with them. • 活動写真 (かつどうしゃしん; motion picture) • 年貢 (ねんぐ; land tax)

30. Meanings associated with words can change through time, with the phonetic forms unchanged. • There are various types of semantic changes; a complete/consistent classification is hard to come by.

31. Varieties of semantic changes • widening & narrowing • degeneration & elevation • hyperbole, litotes • euphemism • semantic expansion by metaphor and metonymy

32. Widening & Narrowing Widening • dog: ‘a specific breed of dog’ > ‘dog in general’ • salary: (a Latin word for) ‘a soldier’s allotment of salt’ > ‘a soldier’s pay’ > ‘wages in general’ Narrowing • hound: ‘dogs in general’ > ‘a specific type of dog’ • meat: ‘food in general’ > ‘meat’

33. Degeneration & Elevation Degeneration • silly: ‘happy, innocent’ > ‘foolish’ • putta: ‘girl’ > ‘whore’ (Italian) Elevation • knight: ‘boy, servant’ > ‘mounted worrior, nobility’ • pretty: ‘crafty, sly’ > ‘lovely’

34. Hyperbole & Litotes Hyperbole (Exaggeration) • ‘I am terribly sorry.’ Litotes (Understatement) • meurtre: ‘to bruise’ > ‘to kill’ (Spanish)

35. Euphemism • euphemism: replacement of words regarded as unpleasant/obscene “Terms for ‘toilet’ frequently come to be considered indelicate, and substitutions lacking the distressing sentiments are made” (Campbell 99: 263) water closet (WC) → toilet→bathroom, mens’/ladies’ room, restroom, etc.

36. Semantic expansion • polysemy & (lexical) ambiguity • A word (form) is called polysemous when it has multiple meanings (that are connected with each other) • bank: (i) financial institution, (ii) river side

37. Expansion by metaphor • grasp: {‘seize’} > {‘seize’, ‘understand’} • to chill: {‘to cool down’} > {‘to cool down’, ‘to calm down, to relax’} • leg, crane, は (歯・刃) • before Metaphor: a process whereby one thing is conceptualized in terms of another, with a leap across semantic domains. A metaphor is based on the resemblance of two things. (e.g. Snow White)

38. Expansion by metonymy • dish: {‘tableware’} > {‘tableware’, ‘food’} • timber: {‘room, building’} > {‘building’, ‘material for building (wood)’} > {‘wood’} • メガネ, blonde • Champagne, Toyota • go to bathroom, 頭を下げる, 頭を抱える Metonymy: a process whereby the name of one thing is substituted by the name of another, closely related object. A metonymy is based on the contiguity/relevance of two things. (product-place, person-attire, part-whole, etc.) (e.g. Little Red Riding Hood)

39. Borrowing • Lexical borrowing (loanwords) is very common in Japanese as well as in English. • Japanese words can be classified by their origins: • 和語 (わご); 固有語 (こゆうご)native words • 漢語 (かんご) Sino-Japanese words • 洋語 (ようご) foreign words • 混種語 (こんしゅご) hybrid words

40. Motivation for (lexical) borrowing • need: coffee, tobacco; コーヒー, タバコ • prestige: アクロバット (かるわざ, 曲芸), アナリスト (分析家), アメニティー (快適さ), … “English could have done perfectly well with only native terms for ‘pig meat’ and ‘cow meat’, but for reasons of prestige, pork and beef were borrowed [from French].” (Campbell 99:64)

41. Sound borrowing is less common than lexical borrowing, but may happen after extensive/intimate language contact. • /ʒ/ (as in leisure, vision) became an English phoneme through French loanwords. (cf. leisure vs. ledger) • ファン [ɸaɴ], ティー [ti:]

42. Syntactic borrowing: “is much more frequent and important than some scholars have thought in the past” (Campbell 99) (From Spanish to Pipil) • Esa mujer es más linda que tú. • ne siwa:t mas galá:na ke taha

43. Analogy (analogical change) • Analogy has been considered one of the most important factors in linguistic change (along with regular sound change and borrowing). • The definition of linguistic analogy, however, tends to be quite vague. • E.g., “Analogy is a process whereby one form of a language becomes more like another with which it is somehow associated.” • ex. January, Febuary, …

44. Analogy is a “wastebasket” category of linguistic change, and includes various subtypes, such as: • proportional analogy • analogical leveling • analogical extension • metanalysis • hypercorrection …

45. A proportional analogical change can be represented in an equation of the form: A : B = C : X where one solves for X.

46. A proportional analogical change that makes the paradigm {simpler/more uniform} is called analogical leveling. • ex 1: old-elder-eldest > old-older-oldest late-latter-last > late-later-latest new : newer = old : x

47. ex 2: Standard English I was We were You were You were He was They were Some dialects (e.g. Smith Island English) I was We was You was You was He was They was

48. A proportional analogical change that makes the paradigm {more complex/irregular} is called analogical extension. • ex 1: ride : rode = dive : x

49. ex 2: ラ抜き言葉 (らぬきことば) Type 1 - verb • 書く : 書かれる : 書ける • 読む : 読まれる : 読める Type 2 - verb • 食べる : 食べられる : 食べれる • 見る : 見られる : 見れる

50. Type 1 - verb • kak-u : kak-are-ru : kak-e-ru • yom-u : yom-are-ru : yom-e-ru Type 2 - verb • tabe-ru : tabe-rare-ru : tabe-re-ru • mi-ru : mi-rare-ru : mi-re-ru are : rare = e : X