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 proper- ties 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 sylla- bles 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 con- taining /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 con- sonants is most easily realized in coronal consonants. The fact that coronal consonants lacked that distinction in written records of Nara Japanese sug- gests that palatalized coronal consonants had changed into affricates or frica- tives, 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 dis- tinction 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 con- sonants. 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 am- bisyllabic 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-ini- tial [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.