GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan)

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Among the five vowels in Modern Japanese, the vowel u is a highcentral unrounded sound [w]. Accordingly, the vowel triangle of Modern Japanese is somewhat anomalous, lacking a rounded high-back vowel [u]. How did this sort of vowel system form historically?
A reconstruction of eight vowels in Old Japanese, the central dialect of the Nara period (710-84), is commonly accepted. Although interpreted otherwise by some, the so-called ko-otsu distinctions must have been due to the vocalic oppositions, i≠ï, e≠ë, and o≠ö. The vowel diagrams of Old Japanese drawn by scholars adopting the eight-vowel theory are, however, in conflict with what some consider to be phonetic universals. In particular, there are only three vowels (i, i, and u) at the high level but four (e, ë, ö, and o) at the mid.
There is no problem with assuming that the sound values of (C) a, (C) i, (C) u, (C) e, and # o were identical with those of the corresponding vowels in Modern Japanese. The problem reduces to determining the sound values of Cï, Cë, Co, and Cö. Judging from the positions of the Chinese Characters, used as man' yogana, in the Ancient Chinese rhyme tables, one may infer that -ö(following a consonant) was phonetically identical with # o (not following a consonant), which was [o], and that the sound value of -o was [u], a high-back vowel. Thus, o with no preceding consonant should be described as ö. Likewise, ï was very likely high-central and ë mid-central. Drawing a diagram based on the inferred sound values, i, ï, u, and o form a high vowel series, front to back; e, ë, and ö form a mid vowel series, front to back; and a is a low-central vowel, just as in the vowel triangles of Altaic languages.
Internal reconstruction on the basis of the verbal stems of Old Japanese indicates that all eight vowels could be coupled with all consonants, including zero, in Archaic (pre-Nara) Japanese. The eighth century was the close of a transitional era, when the ko-otsu distinction remained only in a few environments. At the outset of the Heian period (794-1192), the phonetic changes ï>i, ë>e, and o>ö took place in all environments. The remaining five vowels have continued into the modern period, forming the “anomalous” vowel system of Modern Japanese.

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This article will be centered around the proposal of factoring out the notion of specificity into X-specificity (X= a subject or speaker). An indefinite noun phrase of the form α+a common noun will be specifically dealt with in the discourse context consisting of more than one sentence. X-specificity can be seen to show clause-boundedness effects in the c-domain of a human subject, giving rise to n+1 potentialities for a sentence containing n subjects over and above an omnipresent speaker.
It will be argued that universal import observed in a donkey sentence results from cumulative effects: for each donkey-owner, there exists a uniquely identifiable donkey. The influence of Lewis's (1975) and Heim's (1982) works is readily recognizable in the analysis of an if version of a donkey sentence. It can be seen that a donkey phenomenon is best captured in the quantification-over-cases approach. It may be concluded that the evidence points to the validity of relativizing X-specificity to each possible world.

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This paper discusses syntactic regulation of possible word orders of Japanese honorific predicate constituents based on a version of recent phrase structure grammar formalism. First, it is shown that possible word orders of non-“te”-form honorific auxiliary verbs (like “o…ni naru”, “o…suru” and “…masu”) can be automatically derived from their subcategorization information. Then, by syntactically distinguishing the two usages (i. e. indirect and direct) of the “te”-form benefactive auxiliary verb “…te morau” in accordance with the non-uniform theory of Japanese passives, it is explained how the possibility of its postpositioning to a respect-word is restricted. The subcategoriza tion description of two other classes of benefactive auxiliary verbs (“…te yaru” and “…te kureru”) is also given. This reflects the syntactic similarities of, and differences between, “…te yaru”&“…te kureru”, and non-“te”-form condescending-word auxiliary verbs. Finally, it is briefly shown that our approach also explains possible word orders of Japanese propositionallevel auxiliary verbs in general.

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Non-verbal communication (NVC) is a ceremonial act (Goffman 1956) derived from a ritual (Goffman 1956) of each society.
This paper (1) demonstrates how people communicate non-verbally in Japan and in Taiwan in order to follow the rituals of their society; and (2) reveals what the rituals are that give rise to NVC in the two cultures.
Data for this paper are drawn from field surveys on NVC, for which several steps were taken. The surveys were carried out both in Tokyo and Taipei in 1987.
Of particular interest is the finding that the difference in the fixedness between the two cultures is very striking. The degree of fixedness in NVC of the Japanese is considerably high, while that of the Taiwanese is much lower.
Consequently, the following is implied by this study. For a Japanese, the major concern in choosing an appropriate form in NVC is not dependent on the individual, but rather on the group to which one belongs. Thus ‘attaching more importance to the group rather than to the individual’ is Japanese ritual. On the other hand, for a Taiwanese, it is acceptable, to some extent, to make a free choice of behavior based on individual will. Thus ‘respecting the individual's own behavior’ is Taiwanese ritual.

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