2017 Volume 13 Issue 1 Pages 1-17
As represented by such words as “iːʧi (breath), uːʃi (mortar), wuːki (tub)” in the modern Shuri dialect, many ‘northern’ Ryukyuan systems located in the areas from Amami-Ōshima down to the Okinawan main island exhibit lengthened vowels in the initial syllables of C-Keiretsu (Class C) disyllabic nouns in the Keiretsubetsu-goi. It was first pointed out by Hattori (1932) that the lengthening should have occurred due to some reason related to accent.
Following Hattori (1932)'s assumption, but contrary to Hattori (1979)'s hypothesis that the vowels were already long at the stage of Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan, this paper argues that the vowel lengthening occurred at the stage of Proto-Northern-Ryukyuan, stating that the cause of the lengthening is ascribed to its accentual system. More specifically, the paper proposes that the vowel lengthening took place in order to make a clear-cut distinction from a similar pattern (which is Class A) in the same system, and that it took place in order to make the tonal pattern similar to the one of the trisyllabic nouns of the same class (Class C) in the same system.
