The Liquid and Stem-Final Vowel Alternations of Verbs in Ancient Japanese*

言語研究(Gengo Kenkyu)118(2000),5～27 5

The Liquid and Stem-final Vowel Alternations of Verbs in Ancient Japanese*

Teruhiro HAYATA (Daitobunka University)

Key words: liquid, verb inflection, vowel alternation, regressive assimilation, Ancient Japanese

The aim of this paper is to clarify the phonological motivation for the stem-final /i-u/ and /e-u/ alternations of verbs, as well as properties of liquids in Ancient Japanese. I explore the possibility of a connection between the stem-final vowel alternations in verbs and certain properties of liquid consonants. Present-day Japanese, at least the Tookyoo dialect, does not exhibit stem-final /i-u/ and /e-u/ alternations of verbs. Some modern dialects, e.g., those in Kyuushuu, exhibit alternation only in /e/-stem verbs, but not in /i/-stem verbs. This /e-u/ alternation is a relic of Ancient Japanese. There has been only one liquid phoneme in Japanese throughout its history, whose phonetic realization remains an issue for phonologists.

1. Partial paradigms of Ancient Japanese verbs In Ancient Japanese, verbs are divided into consonant-stem verbs and vowel-stem verbs with or without vowel-alternation. Stem-final syllables of vowel-stem verbs are of three types, namely, /Ci1/, /Ci2/ and

* An inaugural lecture given in Japanese at Chiba University on June 17, 2000. The original title was "Phonology of r and 1: especially in Ancient Japanese" 6 TeruhiroHAYATA

/Ce2/1). Verbs consisting of a monosyllabic stem in the form /Cil/ exhibit no vowel alternation, and will not be treated in this paper. Partial paradigms of typical verbs /age2-/ `to raise' and /oki2-/ `wake up' are shown in (1) :

(1) `to give' negative age2-zu converb (ren' yoo) age2 age2-i imperative age2-jot aorist (shuushi) agu age2-u imperfect adnominal (rentai) agu-ru age2-ru perfect conditional (izen) agu-re age2-re `to get up' negative oki 2-zu converb (ren' yoo) oki2 oki2-i imperative oki2-jo2 aorist (shuushi) oku oki2-u imperfect participle (rentai) oku-ru oki2-ru perfect conditional (izen) oku-re oki2-re

1) In 8th century Nara Japanese (henceforth Nara Japanese), syllables containing /e/ or /i/ were divided into two classes, type 1 (koorui) and type 2 (oturui) if the syllables begin with labial or velar consonants, but there was no such distinction if the syllables begin with coronal consonants. It has been argued that the distinction between type 1 and type 2 was that of palatalization of onsets, type 1 with palatalized onsets and type 2 with non-palatalized onsets. I believe that the distinction between palatalized and non-palatalized consonants is most easily realized in coronal consonants. The fact that coronal consonants lacked that distinction in written records of Nara Japanese suggests that palatalized coronal consonants had changed into affricates or fricatives, some perhaps into approximants, before the era of written records. I consider the distinction between type 1 o and type 2 o to be that of vowel quality, not the palatalization of onsets, but I will not discuss this issue here. In this paper, type 1 syllables are represented with subscript "1", and type 2 syllables with subscript "2". To the syllables for which no orthographic distinction exists, no subscript is given. In the syllables Ci and Ce where C's are coronal and have no orthographic distinction, the consonants were, in my The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 7 It is clear from (1) that the final vowels /e/ and /i/ of the verb stems /age2-/ and /oki2-/ change into /u/ when followed by the `rentai' suffix /ru/ and the 'izen' suffix /re/. Since the surface stem-final vowel /u/ of the 'shuushi' form may be due to assimilation to or fusion with the 'shuushi' suffix /u/, it comes into question why stem-final vowels /e/ and /i/ change into /u/ before the suffixes /ru/ and /re/. When Morris Halle visited Japan for the first time in July of 1969, Dr. Hattori Shiro expressed his idea before Halle that the 'rentai' suffix must have been /uru/2). Changes /age2-uru/ aguru, and /oki2-uru/ okuru are phonetically plausible, but consonant-stem verbs, e.g. /kak-/ 'write', followed by /-uru/, would. be likely to result in nonattested forms like *kakuru. The attested form is kaku. Accordingly, the underlying form of 'rentai' suffix is more likely /ru/ rather than /uru/, and that of 'izen' suffix /re/. If this is so, it may be safe to say that stem-final vowels change into /u/ when followed by /r/. It should be noted here, that stem-final vowels change into /u/ when followed by an `inflectional' suffix beginning with /r/, not before `derivational' affixes like potential- passive affixes /-rare/, /-raje/ (e.g. nerajenu <-- /ne-raje-an-ru/ `cannot sleep'). Even in the ancient written records, the alternation in question is grammaticalized, i.e. the alternation occurs when followed by `rentai' and 'izen' suffixes. I would like to consider the phonological motivation for the above alternation before it was grammaticalized.

2. The properties of liquids If the alternation in question occurs when followed by /r/, the only liquid in Japanese, the properties of liquids in general and especially in Ancient

opinion, not palatalized. The distinction between type 1 o and type 2 o is ob- literated insyllables with a zero onset and labial onsets, /p/ /b/ and /m/, except in one important document, 'Kojiki', where type 1 mo and type 2 mo are dis- tinguished. 2) The idea that `rentai' and `izen' suffixes should have been /uru/ and /ure/ 8 TeruhiroHAYATA Japanese should be examined. Since there is no evidence that there could have existed more than one kind of liquid in Ancient Japanese, we should examine liquids in general, laterals as well as rhotics (r-sounds). Liquids are, phonetically, the most sonorous of the oral consonants. It is said that in languages allowing consonant clusters, liquids are the sounds which can co-occur most freely with a variety of other consonants. Since Japanese does not allow consonant clusters, liquids may only be grouped with nasals and approximants under the name of sonorant, where the voicing feature is not contrastive.

2. 1. The distinction between rhotics and laterals Rhotics (r-sounds), commonly written with the letter `r', include a wide variety of sounds. However, the most typical rhotics are trills made with the tip or blade of the tongue &]). In contrast to rhotics, laterals are defined by the manner of articulation. Although Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 182) say that laterals "are sounds in which the tongue is contracted in such a way as to narrow its profile from side to side so that a greater volume of air flows around one or both sides than over the center of the tongue," the most typical laterals occur "at the dental, alveolar, retroflex and palatal places of articulation." (Ladefoged 1971) Briefly, a typical rhotic is [r], and a typical lateral [1]. Next to typical trilled [r]s, coronal taps or flaps ([r]), lateral flaps ([J]), fricatives and approximants ([.fl), and various other sounds, even uvular trills ([R]) and fricatives ([is]) are also classed as rhotics. All these r-sounds, in fact, occupy different phonological positions in different languages. Classification of non-typical r-sounds seems to be highly arbitrary. Consider (2), where I summarize at the risk of over- simplification. Here I would like to show that `r-sounds' can occupy a variety of positions.

respectively, had already been suggested in Smith (1969). The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbs in AncientJapanese 9

(2) English German & French Manchu & Sibe Mongolian Japanese

`r -sounds' in Indo-European languages are grouped together as a rhotic class based on historical (dialectal) connections and on the use of the letter Y. /t/ and /d/ in American English are flaps ([r]) in ambisyllabic position. However, Mongolian /t/ and /d/ are not flaps [r] even in ambisyllabic position. The voiced uvular approximant ([IS]) sound is /g/ for Japanese speakers, and is a typical allophone of intersonorant /X/ in the Sibe language (and presumably Manchu in the Ching Dynasty). Since [1]in English is a realization of /1/, and [j] is a liquid contrasting with [1], it is a matter of course that [.i] is regarded as a realization of /r/. On the other hand, Sibe (and presumably Manchu) contrasts /1/ and /r/, pronouncing both [1]and [r] in syllable-initial position, but Sibe treats [i] as /1/ rather than /r/. The reason for this is that in Sibe, [1] and [r] contrast in syllable-initial position, and [.i] and [r] contrast in syllable- final position. [1] appears to occur syllable-finally at least phonetically, but its phonological interpretation seems to me still open to question. I conjecture that /a.le./, for instance ("." is a syllable boundary), with /e/ reduced, is pronounced [al.] or [a.l:. ] and that /al./, for instance, is pronounced [a.fl. If my conjecture is right, it follows that syllable-initial [1]and syllable-final [i] are in complementary distribution, as in (3).

(3) The complementary distribution of [1] and [.i] in Sibe-Manchu .la *al. (a.l:. ) * .Ja ai. cf. ra ar. 10 TeruhiroHAYATA In Sibe both [1] and [i] are written with one and the same grapheme (transcribed with 1 . In Manchu documents from the Ching Dynasty, Chinese is written with the Manchu script transcribed as 'leo' (presumably [lqu]), and as 'el' (presumably [Al]) . There must be a distinctive feature distinguishing /1/ [1- j], which is pronounced without a trill, from /r/, which is pronounced with a strong trill.

2. 2. How was /r/ pronounced in the phonetic history of Japanese? `r-sounds' in some languages are pronounced with lip rounding and protruding. It is said that the lip rounding and protruding combined with other articulatory mechanisms produce fricative or approximant rhotics in alveolar or post-alveolar position ([j]), and this is typical of American English /r/. However, rhotics with the tongue tip with a single or repeated closures ([r] [r] [1]etc.) and uvular rhotics ([R] [K]etc.) lack lip protruding. If the `r-sound' of Ancient Japanese was an apical fricative or approximant like that of English, we would have to pay at- tention to lip rounding. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Ancient Japanese /r/ was a fricative or approximant. According to Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), trills, apical as well as uvular (p. 219, 225), and flaps (p. 240) can be preceded by a brief prothetic vowel-like -segment (as in Italian, Swedish, and Warlpiri). Since there is no report that these prothetic vowel-like segments could be rounded, it would be futile to resort to such a vowel-like segment for resolving the problem of stem-final /u/-alternation when the stem is followed by the /r/-sound in Ancient Japanese. There is no type 1-2 distinction in the perfect conditional (`izen' ) morpheme /re/ since the initial consonant is coronal. However, when preceded by a stem ending in a consonant, the onset /r/ of /re/ is deleted. Then, if the stem-final consonant is non-coronal, the type 1-2 distinction appears as in (4), where the resulting syllable is always of the type 2 variety, i.e. the syllable in question begins with a non-palatalized con- TheLiquid and Stem-final Vowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 11 sonant. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that the underlying form of the morpheme must consist of the type 2 syllable /re2/.

(4) asolb-e2 do2 mo asolb-re (2) do2 mo 阿蘇倍等母 (Man'yooshuu V-836) `although one plays'

kolpu-re (2)do2 mo kolpi2-re (2) do2 mo 古布礼騰毛 (Man'yooshuu XIX-4209) `although one loves'

/asolb-e2/ is derived from /aso1b-re2/, while /kolpu-re2/ is derived from /kolpi2-re2/ with the /i2-u/ alternation. A type 2 syllable ending in /e/ whose onset is not palatalized is best considered to be derived di- achronically from Cai as in (5). Hattori (1979) also gives only *ai as a proto-Japanese form of /e2/, /eel/ in the Central dialects of the Nara Period. See (13).

(5) *Cai > Ce2

It follows that the morpheme /re2/ of Ancient Japanese was formerly /rai/. Since the single liquid of Ancient Japanese, /r/, was written with Chinese characters for words whose onset was most likely [1], and Chinese words beginning with [1]were introduced into Japanese with the /r/ sound, it seems safe to say that this Ancient Japanese /r/ cannot have been a uvular sound like [R] nor [x]. Chinese at that time does not seem to have had rhotics. Hence, it seems reasonable to suppose that /r/ of Ancient Japanese could have been an apical liquid with a brief contact with the upper teeth or the alveolus. Hattori (1979: 115) suggests that "/r/ of pre -proto Japanese was a flapped `r' like that of present-day Japanese or Korean intervocalically, and an apical alveolar `1'somewhat palatalized with a clear quality like Korean final `-l', ..." 12 TeruhiroHAYATA In the 16th-17th century, authors of Christian documents used the letter `r' in transcribing Japanese /r/, without any discussion in their Portuguese, Spanish and Latin documents. Portuguese 'rosario' was introduced into Japanese as /rozairo/ and /rozarijo/, 'raxe' as /rasja/, `raxeita' as /raseita/ , 'rabeca' as /rabeika/, 'rosa' as /rouza/, 'Roma' as /roma/, etc. Portuguese `1' was, of course, introduced into Japanese with the same phoneme /r/, e.g. `limbo' as /rinbo/. All the above considerations suggest that the syllable-initial liquid of Japanese from Ancient to Modern has been consistently a trill or a flap or a lateral flap sound, which of course does not contrast with [1]. Only the word-initial liquid remains a problem. Although no liquid occurred word-initially in native Ancient Japanese words, many Chinese words beginning with the [l]-sound were accepted as Sino-Japanese words beginning with a liquid. Did the masses unfamiliar with Chinese accept Chinese words with initial [1]without any difficulty? If they accepted at least some of the [1]-initial Chinese words into Japanese with some modification of the [l]-sound into another sound, then what sound could have been substituted for the initial [1]? I would like to consider Chinese [l]-initial words under the ancient disguise of native Japanese. In connection with the fact that Chinese had no rhotics, the ri-mu (H a) onset should be considered. In present-day Peking Chinese the ri-mu onsets are represented with `r' in the pin yin notation, e.g. Ri-Ben (H *). The corresponding Sino-Japanese go-on and kan-on readings of the present-day ri (H) are /niti/ and /zitu/ respectively. The /z/ of the kan-on reading may appear to be similar to a liquid, but in my opinion the 'dakuon' consonants of Ancient Japanese were not simply voiced obstruents but voiced prenasalized obstruents. Accordingly, both /niti/ and /zitu/ began with nasal consonants at that time, and this /z/ has no relation to liquids. In Altaic languages, [r] does not occur word-initially, while [1] does occur word-initially. Matsumoto (1994: 47) observes that there are many languages where [r] does not occur word-initially. As mentioned The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 13 above, a trill of the tongue tip [r] is difficult to pronounce word-initially and prothetic vowel-like segments tend to occur instead. Generally, [r] is more difficult to pronounce word-initially and is apt not to occur word-initially, while [1] is easy to pronounce, and often does occur, word-initially. If the liquid of Ancient Japanese had been [1], this [1] should, therefore, have not been difficult to pronounce word-initially. Since no liquids in fact occurred word-initially, it follows that the liquid of Ancient Japanese was not an [l]-like sound but rather an [r]-like sound. Notwithstanding this, the initial [1]-sounds of Chinese words were represented as Japanese liquids from the very beginning of written records in Japan. Consequently, it might be assumed that the Chinese word-initial [l]s were accepted into Ancient Japanese as .[1], which was the easier one to pronounce, at least word-initially. Word-initial liquids of present-day Japanese are pronounced [1]by many people including me.

2. 3. With what sounds did Ancient Japanese /r/ alternate? To understand the properties of Ancient Japanese liquids, we should consider how the /r/ alternated in cognate words. A couple of Ancient Japanese examples are given in Kamei (1973ab, first published in 1953, 1954 respectively), as shown in (6) :

(6) turu - tadu `crane' (`turn' is colloquial, 'tadu' poetic) kaperu - kapadu `frog' (the palatalization of /p/ in /pe/ is unknown for philological reasons. 'kaperu' is colloquial, 'kapadu' poetic)

Leaving aside the question of the relatedness of 'turu' with Korean `turumi' discussed in Kamei , the alternation between [r] and [d] is phonetically plausible. Note that the typical sound change, /d/ > /r/, is found in modern Japanese, e.g. /karo no uron'ja/ < /kado no udon'ja/ 14 TeruhiroHAYATA

meaning `an udon shop on the corner' in the Hakata dialect of Fukuoka. However, as I have often argued, the contrast between 'seion' and 'dakuon' , namely /p t k s/ vs. /b d g z/, in Ancient Japanese must have been that between non-nasal obstruents versus nasal obstruents, rather than that between voiceless versus voiced obstruents. It follows that the /r/-/d/ alternation must have been that between [r -.r] vs. ["d]. The alternation is different in nature from that of [d] > [r] rhotacism. Rather, the not uncommon series of sound changes [nr] > [ndr] > [ - dr] > [-d] was more likely to have occurred. It seems reasonable to suppose that /tadu/ followed the process *tanru > *tandru > *ta dru > to du /tadu/, and that /kapadu/ followed the process *kapanru > *kapandru > *kapa dru > kapa du /kapadu/ . /kaperu/ may possibly have been /kape2ru/ with a non-palatalized p and have been *kapairu formerly. /*kapanru/ and /*kapairu/ seem to be doublets and share the morpheme /kapa/ `river', while the origins of the following /-nru/ and /-iru/ remain unclear. It may be that /*kapanru/ comes from /*kapa- no2-iru/ (river-Gen.-'iru') and /*kapairu/ from /*kapa-iru/ (river-`iru'), while /*tanru/ might come from /*ta-n02-turu/ (rice field-Gen.-crane) . Throughout the period of written records down to the present day, the contrast between /r/ (intransitive and passive) and /s/ (transitive and causative) has been evident, but no etymological connection is found between them. Passive affixes /raje/ found in the Nara Period and /rare/ used throughout the history of Japanese down to this day must be cognate without doubt. Although the era of /raje/ precedes that of /rare/, the [j] > [r] sound change is not common. Therefore, the difference is commonly considered dialectal. A proto-form like *rat'ai (or *rarjai) is supposed to have yielded *rarai in the Central dialects through the sound change * > r, and *rajai through * > j, as shown in (7) :

(7) * rarai *rarai* Central dialects in general rajai Southern Central dialect]] The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 15

Imperative affixes have been /jot/ (/jo/ in present-day dialects) in Central Japan, and /roe/ (/ro/ in present day dialects) in Eastern and Western Japan. Examples from the Man'yooshuu (in the Nara Period) are shown in (8) :

(8) Central dialects oki2jo2 oki2-jo2 < *akai- 起余 (XVI-3873) `get up!' sake1[sakje]←sak-jo2<*sak- 左家 (XX-4446)`bloom!'

Eastern dialects tuke2ro2 tuke2-cot < *tukai-Aa 都氣呂 (XX-4420) `attach!'

pake2 3) pak-Ao2 < *pak-Aa 波氣 (XIV-3399) `wear!'

From the phonological point of view, the /A02/ of the Eastern and Western dialects must be the older form. I hold the opinion that the underlying form of the imperative affix in the Central dialects of Ancient Japanese must have been /j02/ (Hayata 1980). I thought I was the first to have this idea, but in fact Smith (1969: 440) already had taken /yo/ (or /ye/) as an underlying form for this morpheme. In summing up the main points in (7) and (8), the historical development of *c is shown as in (9):

(9) r /Eastern dialects

*A > /passive affix in the Central dialects

j /the Central dialects in general (except of passive affix) /passive affix in the Southern Central dialect

It should be noted that the correspondences are different between the imperative suffix and the final particle interdialectally as in (10) :

3) Many questions on the phonology of the ancient Eastern dialects are left open. 16 TeruhiroHAYATA

(10) Central dialects Eastern and Western dialects imperative suffix jot [ja - je] 02 [ra - e] final particle J02' j02 j02

The difference of correspondences shown in (10) suggests the imperative suffix and the final particle `jo2' might not have been cognate, though suffixes and particles are different in status. On pre-proto Japanese liquids Hattori (1979: 106, 115) had in- teresting ideas, which I quote in (11) including the part already given before:

(11) while *-i of converbs (ren yookei) *'akai [ > oki2] `gets up and', *'akai [ > ake] `opens and' , *makai [ > make] `is defeated and', etc. must have been a vowel morpheme with a meaning like `nominalization' , ancestors of the other *-i are, I think, various consonants etc. one of which is *-r. (p. 106) The sound change **-r [-r of pre-proto Japanese] -f *-i may appear peculiar, but if /r/ of pre-proto Japanese was a flapped `r' like that of present-day Japanese or Korean intervocalically, and an apical alveolar `1' somewhat palatalized with a clear quality like Korean `-1' finally, such a sound change is fully possible. (p. 115)

Assuming that such a syllable-final /r/ existed, i.e. that "1>> i" is phonetically possible, Hattori (pp. 114, 115) observed that proto-Japanese- Korean forms such as **pur [[puh]] `fire' > *pui [ > pi2] and **mer [[meli]] or **mVr [[mVli]] `water' > *me [mel] are possible. He added that "th e above suggestions are not yet linguistically verified" but "the more similarities indicated between Japanese and other languages, the better."

3. Is the alternation between /i, e/ and /u/ really related to liquids? It is no wonder that the phonetic value of /r/ in Ancient Japanese in- TheLiquid and Stem-final Vowel Alternations ofVerbs in AncientJapanese 17 volved a trill of the tongue tip, i.e. [r]. The /r/ in question is a syllable-initial but not word-initial sound, and has nothing to do with the prothetic vowel-like segment, which tends to occur word-initially. Rounding and protruding of lips accompanying /r/ of English and other languages must be also irrelevant to the /r/ in question of Ancient Japanese. Rounding and protruding are said to occur with fricative rhotics. /r/s of present-day Japanese dialects are generally apical, and fall into the range of lateral [1],trilled [r], lateral flap [J]or (stoplike) flap [r]. Typical fricative [j] in Japanese has not been reported, to my knowledge. There is no compelling evidence that the /r/ of Ancient Japanese was a liquid with lip rounding and lip protrusion. From considerations so far, it follows that /r/ of Ancient Japanese had no phonetic properties that could contribute to the rounding of the preceding vowels. If this /r/ came from *t or *d, there would be no tendency to round the preceding vowels. This means, as regards to accounting for the alternations of stem-final vowels with /u/, we cannot dwell on the phonetic properties of /r/ and we must change tracks.

4. Imperfect adnominal (participle) The imperfect adnominal (participial) endings of verbs in the Nara Period, /ru/ of the Central dialects and /rot/ of the Eastern dialects, must be cognate. Some example of /rot/ of the Eastern dialects are shown in (12) :

(12) Corresponding forms of the Central dialects are shown in paren- theses. pur o1 jo2ki1not (guru jukil not) `snow which falls' (Man'yooshuu XIV-3423) ko2jo2piltoe no2r-ar-o1wa ga sena pa (... no2r-er-u....) `my lover who said "I'll come to you this evening"' (Man'yooshuu XIV-3469) oso2ki1not ar-o1ko2so2 yesi mo (... ar-u ko2so2yo2si mO)

* /o/ [oturui , i.e. 02] /o/, /u/ [o: oturui, i.e. 02] *ai /e/ , /ee/ both oturui *ui /i/ , /ii/ both oturui *ai /i/ , /ii/ both oturui *ui /i/ , /ii/ both oturui

18 TeruhiroHAYATA `having clothes is good' (Man'yooshuu XIV -3509) awoyagi2 not par-ar-o1 kapato1 ni (... par-er-u `on the ford where willows are sprouting'

(Man'yooshuu XIV-3546)

Just as the imperfect adnominal endings of verbs are /ru/ in the Central dialects and /rot/ in the Eastern dialects, the adnominal endings of adjectives are /kit/ [kii] in the Central dialects and /ke1/ [kie] in the Eastern dialects. /kit/ and /ke1/ must have been cognate, as Takeda (1949) and Fukuda (1954ab) observed as early as half a century ago. They both regarded /ke1/ as an older form. Hattori (1979b: 98) claims that there was a distinction between long and short vowels even in the Heian Period, not to mention the Nara Period. He gave a list of vowels of proto-Japanese reconstructed from the correspondences between Nara Japanese and those of the Okinawa dialects, probably also based on other considerations. Omitting the correspondences with the Okinawa dialects, I show the list in (13), where the conditions of vowel-shortening in the Nara Period are not given:

(13) proto-Japanese Central dialects of the Nara Period *i /i/ (koorui) [ii] *e /i/ (koorui) [ii] *a /a/ *0 /u/ *u /u/

*oo lot , tool [both koorui, i.e. 01, 001] Comments in [ ] are mine.

It follows from Hattori's hypothesis (13) that the Central dialects underwent Vowel-raising (*ro > ru, *ke > ki1 [kii], e.g. *pur-ro *puro > guru '(one which) falls', *kanasi-ke > kanasikil [kanasikii] 'beloved'), while in the Eastern dialects, Vowel-raising did not occur (*pur-ro *puro-r puro1 , *kanasi-ke kanasikel remained unchanged). If the protoform of these endings contained a long vowel, then vowel reduc- tion is supposed to have occurred word-finally (*roo > *ro, *kee > *ke) in both the Central and Eastern dialects, and then Vowel-raising occurred only in the Central dialects. Hitherto, I have postulated that the proto-form of the adnominal ending of adjectives was either *ke or *kee. The adnominal ending of verbs may have been *rau, which later changed into *roo by Hattori's hypothesis (13). Now consider the following etymologies given by Ono (1977: 202. 203) :

(14) kazu + ape2- kazolpe2- `to count' tudu + ape2- tudolpe2- `to get together'

Following the etymologies in (14), *ua can be added as one of the predecessors of /01/ in the Central dialects in the Nara Period, that is, *roo can be derived from *rua . In sum, to this point I have postulated that the proto-form of the adnominal ending of adjectives was either *ke or *kee, and the imperfect adnominal ending of verbs was *rau, *rua, *roo , or *ro. Could the number of candidates be reduced?

The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 19 *ia /e/ , /ee/ both koorui Lie, iee] *au /o/ , /oo/ [both koorui, i.e. 01, 001] *ee /e/ , /ee/ both koorui [ie, Jee] 20 TeruhiroHAYATA

5. Ku-nominalization In Ancient Japanese a process called 'ku-gohoo' (ku-nominalization) was active. Some examples are: ipu ipaku `the fact that (one) says', ko1 puru ---*ko1puraku `the fact that (one) loves', ipilsi ipilsiku `the fact that (one) said', nakil nakelku [nakieku] `the fact that (one) is ab- sent'. From the data of tones in the Heian Period, the form of ku- nominalization is `an adnominal form of verbs and adjectives + a high- pitched monosyllabic noun'. It has been proposed that ku-nominalization is `an adnominal form + aku' (Okada 1942, though this may possibly be Dr. Kindaichi Kyoosuke's original idea (Fukuda 1954b: 36)). However, this aku-theory would yield nonattested forms as in (15), where nonattested forms are preceded by the symbol "x" rather than "*" to avoid the confusion between nonattested forms and reconstructed forms:

(15) imperfect adnominal ru + aku raku past adnominal isi + aku xiseku the attested form is isiku. adnominal of adjective kit + aku kelku [kieku]

It is clear from (15) that `an adnominal form + aku' would yield correct attested forms in the cases of imperfect adnominals of verbs and adnominals of adjectives, but the case of the past adnominal remains a problem. I follow the theory of Okada (1900) and Fukuda (1954a, b) that the ku-nominalization is `an adnominal form + ku', rather than '... + aku'. Explicitly, ku is a formal noun, and the preceding ra, isi and ke1 [kie] in ra-ku, isi-ku and ke1-ku [kie-ku] are petrified adnominal forms respectively, of which only isi remained unchanged in the Nara Period. If these three morphemes are adnominal endings, then ra (and ru) and ke1 (and kit) must be cognate with rot and kel, respectively, in the Eastern dialects. Four candidates *rau, *rua, *roo, or *ro have been posited above for a protoform of an adnominal ending of verbs. If ra is The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 21 to be posited as a petrified form of the adnominal ending, the candidates seem to be winnowed down from four to two, i.e. either *rau or *rua. At the stage when neither *au > 001 nor *ua > 001 had occurred, *rau + ku or *rua + ku should have been petrified into raku. On the other hand, *rau or *rua not followed by ku underwent the above-mentioned sound change turning into *roo, and then reducing to *ro word-finally. This *ro changed into ru in the Central dialects by Hattori's hypothesis (13), while it remained unchanged in the Eastern dialects. If the pro- to-form of adnominal of adjectives had been *ke, the ku-nominalization form *ke + ku would be xkilku in Nara Japanese by Hattori's hypothesis (13). Therefore, it follows that the proto-form must be *kee. This *kee must have reduced into *ke just as in the case of *roo word-finally. This *ke changed into kit in the Central dialects by Hattori's hypothesis , while it remained unchanged in the Eastern dialects. So far the candidates have been reduced to *rau or *rua as a verb- ending and *kee as an adjective ending.

6. Perfective conditional (izen) form The adnominal verb endings *rau or *rua remind me of one point regarding the conditional ending. It has been already mentioned that the underlying form of the conditional ending in Nara Japanese must have been re2, where r is not palatalized. It has also been mentioned that e preceded by unpalatalized consonants must have been formerly *ai (5) . This means that the conditional re2 must have been formerly *rai. *raai should be rejected since it would yield raa or ra, rather than re2, in the Nara Period (Hattori 1979: 114). It is most natural to assume that a certain intervocalic consonant was deleted in *ai. This deleted consonant might best be considered to be [g] among others, since [g] is apt to be palatalized before [i] and indeed changes into [j] eventually. In short, the development of the conditional ending is, in my opinion, *ragi > *raji > *rai > re2. I propose that *ragi arises at the stage of non-nasal dakuon. In the 22 TeruhiroHAYATA pre-Nara period, it is likely that there was a series of non-nasal voiced obstruents /b d g z / etc., which later changed into approximants. Some /z/ forms may have changed into /s/. Subsequently, nasal + vowel + obstruent sequences yielded a new nasal dakuon series, e.g. ami1 + para `net + belly' - ambara `rib' . Dakuon occurrences in the Nara period were these new nasal obstruents. Interestingly, in the present-day Saga dialect there is a conditional expression which is in the form of 'ru + gi', where ru is an adnominal ending and gi seems to function as a formal noun. See (16).

(16) tabe + ru + gi -f taburu + gi tabur + gi tabuggi `if one eats'

for + ru + gi tore + gi for + gi toggi `if one takes'

kak + ru + gi kaku+gi `if one writes'

/r/ of this dialect does not occur in this ending except as an assimilated sound before /r/, but /ru/ should be taken as an underlying form of this ending (Hayata 1998). Just as the conditional ending of the present- day Saga dialect /ru + gi/ is `an adnominal ending + a formal noun', so the *ragi of the pre-Nara period appears to be analyzable into `an adnominal ending + a formal noun', i.e. /*ra + gi/. Indeed, the semantic difference between the two endings different in time might be called into account, but this is not a grave problem seeing that the conditional /re2/ has undergone not a small amount of semantic change during the long period of written records. By analyzing the conditional ending of Ancient Japanese into an adnominal ending + a formal noun, apparently anomalous forms of the `past' ending isi (adnominal) proves to be parallel with the imperfect endings as in (17) : The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 23

(17) present-day Saga Ancient Japanese imperfect imperfect past ru *ra isi adnominal ru-gi *ra-gi isi-ka conditional

From comparison with the Tungus languages, Ikegami (1978) postulated that the conditional ending re2 of Ancient Japanese could be derived from *ra + i or *ra + Ci. My postulation, however, is not based on comparison with other languages. Even if the adnominal ending is supposed to have come from *ra + gi, it has not yet been decided whether this *ra could trace back to *rau or to *rua.

7. The adnominal ending, the conditional ending and the passive ending Now recollect the first problem. Why do verb-stem-final vowels alternate with /u/ before the imperfect adnominal ending /ru/ and the perfect conditional ending /re2/, while they do not alternate before the passive affix /rare/ - /raje/, though all these endings begin with /r/. Since age2- `to raise', for instance, must contain the same root morpheme with agar- `to rise', they could be assumed to have been formerly *aga-i- and *aga-r respectively . The adnominal form and the conditional form of *aga-i- were aguru and agure respectively in the Nara Period. In accordance with the choice between *rau or *rua, two processes a) or b) will work as in (18) : 24 Teruhiro HAYATA

(18) stem-final i-u-alternation ra-petrification a *aga-i-rau *aga-u-rau b) *aga-i-rua *aga-u-rua a) *aga-i-rau-gi *aga-u-rau-gi > * (aga-u) -ra-gi > b) *aga-i-rua-gi *aga-u-rua-gi > * (aga-u) -ra-gi >

Hattori (13) 4) g > j > 0 O no (14) > *ago-ro > aguru > *ago-ro > aguru * (aga-u) -rai > *ago-rai > agure * (aga -u) -rai > *ago-rai > agure

In the stem-final i-u alternation, if process a) applies, /i/ alternates with /u/ before /rau/, while if process b) works, /i/ alternates with /u/ before /rua/. Since the passive /rarai/ and /rajai/ do not yield the u-alternation of the preceding /i/, process a) is peculiar in that the preceding /i/ does change into /u/ before /rau/, although both the passive and adnominal morphemes begin with /ra/. If process b) applies, in contrast, we can speak of the difference of phonological environment, that is, before /rua/ the stem-final /i/ does change into /u/, while before /rarai/ and /rajai/ the /i/ does not change. Since the consonant /r/ itself has proved to have no effect on the vowel alternation, the vowel /u/ after /r/ may bring about regressive assimilation changing the preceding /i/ to /u/. From these considerations, *rua rather than *rau seems the most likely candidate to be taken as the adnominal form in the pre-Nara period. This *rua ap-

4) I will cite other types of vowel-stem verbs containing *a and *o as root-final vowels: *aka-i- (rau/rua) *aka-u- (...) --* oku-ru `to get up', *kopo-i- (raulrua) --), *kopo-u- (...) -p ko1pu-ru `to love, to miss'. The two lines *au > /uu/, /u/ and *ou > /uu/, /u/ should be added to Hattori's hypothesis in (13). Seen from the processes *aka-i-i *aka-i > oki2 [akai], *kopo-i-i *kopo-i > kolpi2 [kopoi] (both converbs (ren yoo)), *ka-i > ki2 [kii] `tree (isolated form)', *ka- (na-ure) > ko2-(nure) '(the end of) tree' and so on, the above two lines of processes appear natural. The Liquidand Stem-finalVowel Alternations of Verbsin AncientJapanese 25 pears to have come from something like *ruCa. It is open to question what kind of consonant should be posited as this C.

8. Summing up In verbs of Ancient Japanese, stem-final oturui-vowels, i.e. vowels not preceded by palatalized consonants, change into /u/ when followed by the adnominal ending /ru/ and the conditional ending /re2/ which both begin with /r/, while stem-final vowels do not change when followed by the passive affixes /rarai/ nor /rajai/ which similarly begin with /r/. I argue from several points of view that this /r/ has been phonetically r-like sound through the history of Japanese, and it is clear that the phonetic properties of /r/ have nothing to do with the u-alternation. The reconstructed forms *rua (adnominal) and *rua gi (conditional) through comparison between the Central dialects and the Eastern dialects of the Nara Period, and through internal reconstruction, etc. appear to account for the alternation, since the alternation occurs only before segments beginning with /ru/ but not before segments beginning with /ra/. The alternation suggests regressive assimilation in verb with stem final oturui vowels. 26 TeruhiroHAYATA

References Fukuda, Yoshisuke 1954a Kodaigohoo songi (1) : E-retu-on no ren- taikei. Bungaku Kenkyuu 48: 39-48. 1954b Kodaigohoo songi (2) : Ku-gohoo ni tuite. Bungaku Kenkyuu 50: 31-41. Hattori, Shiro 1979 Nihon-sogo ni tuite (20). Gekkan Gengo 10: 105-115. Hayata, Teruhiro 1998 Saga-hoogen no doosi-mikanryoo-rentaisetu- zi no kiteikei. Kyuudai-gengogaku-kenkyuusitu hookoku 19: 1-4. Ikegami, Jiroo 1978 Arutaigo-keitooron, Iwanamikooza Nihongo 12 Nihongo no keitoo to rekisi. Kamei, Takashi 1973a (first published in 1963) Are Japanese turu and ito related to Korean turumi and sil respectively? Nihongo- keitooron no miti /Kamei Takashi ronbunshuu 2: 55-65. Yoshikawa Koobunkan. 1973b (first published in 1954) Turu to ito, Nihongo- keitooron no miti /Kamei Takashi ronbunshuu 2: 67-90. Yoshikawa Koobunkan. Ladefoged, Peter and Ian Maddieson 1996 The sounds of the world's languages. Cambridge: Blackwell. Matsumoto, Katumi 1994 Nihongo-keitooron no minaosi: Makuro no rekisi-gengogaku kara no teigen. Nihongoron 2-11: 36-51. 1998 Ryuuon no taipu to sono tiriteki bunpu: Nihongo ra- gyoo-on no jinrui-gengositeki haikei. Ippan-gengogaku-ronsoo 1: 1- 47. Okada, Mareo 1942 Ku-gohoo no setuzoku ni tuite. Kokugo-kokubun 11-9.10. Smith, Donald L. 1969 On the non-trivial role of the otsu vowels in Old Japanese verb inflections. Papers from the fifth regional meet- ing Chicago Linguistic Society, April 18-19, 1969: 435-441. Takeda, Yuukichi 1949 Man'yooshuu zen-chuushaku. Kaizoosha. The Liquid and Stem-final Vowel Alternations of Verbs in Ancient Japanese 27

上代日本語の流音と動詞語幹末母音交替

早田輝洋

(大東文化大学)

上代日本語の二段活用動詞は終止形・連体形・已然形で語幹末母音が/u/と交

替する.この交替は文献時代では既に文法化していた.しかし,文法化する以前

の音韻的条件は何だったのであろうか.語幹末母音が/u/と交替するのは,乙類

音節で終る語幹末母音の次に終止語尾/-u/,連体語尾|-ru|,已然語尾/-re/の来る

時であるが,終止語尾/-u/の場合は母音の融合かも知れぬゆえ考察から外すと

/-ru//-re/の前,即ち/-r/の前ということになる.しかし,受身接辞/-rare//-raje/

の前では交替は起きない.日本語の歴史を通じて,その/r/の音はr的な音であ

ること,その音が当面の母音交替に関係ないことを論じ,ついで奈良時代の東西

方言の対応や服部仮説から連体接辞の祖形*rua,巳然接辞の祖形*rua-giを再構

すると,当該の母音交替は後続音節*ruaの母音*uによる逆行同化を思わせる

ものとなることを示す.過去接辞/-isi//-isi-ka/の形態素構成にも示唆する所が

ある。

(受理日 2000年8月10日)