Old Japanese was written exclusively in Chinese characters, and a method to use both their logographic and phonographic functions were already being explored, which would lead to the mixed kanji–kana system in the later periods. In the study of Old Japanese, man'yōgana spellings such as “於保岐美” have been considered vital for accurately reconstructing word forms and have often served as a foundation for research. However, placing excessive emphasis on reconstructions derived from kana inevitably assumes that the syllabic values represented by kana are absolute. In reality, writing systems are never intended to replicate spoken language with perfect fidelity. This becomes clear when considering kun-gana, which was used alongside on-gana and kanji in its logographic function, thus reflecting the complexities of Old Japanese writing practices. In studying ancient texts, researchers have endeavored to obtain phonetic evidence conveyed by written symbols and reconstruct word forms accordingly. However, confining the analysis to a limited set of textual examples and applying purely statistical methods can result in circular reasoning. This paper examines these issues and potential strategies for resolving them, as well as the broader challenges and future prospects for studies on Japanese scripts and writing systems, including the later periods when scripts beyond kanji came into use.

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When discussing “grammatical change in Japanese,” it is important to capture both the specificity of “Japanese” and the generality of “grammatical change” simultaneously. There are two main approaches to studying this topic: examining the history of Japanese grammar through the lens of general principles of grammatical change identified in other languages (e.g., studies on “grammaticalization” as applied to Japanese) and exploring the generality of grammatical change by focusing on the history of Japanese grammar itself. The latter approach is adopted in this study. By organizing instances of what materials were used to create function words (grammatical forms) in the history of Japanese grammar—referred to here as “function word production”—it is possible to classify a broad range of cases, within which “grammaticalization” represents just one category. In functional word production, there are highly frequent, prominent, and less common types, and this perspective can explain the reasons for these differences. However, this perspective represents only one way of understanding grammatical changes. To address these limitations, individual case studies that do not fit within this framework are introduced, reaffirming the importance of detailed, specific research.

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The Lambeth Psalter in London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 427 (s. xi1) is a Psalter manuscript made in England during the eleventh century. This manuscript is remarkable for its continuous syntactical gloss, which gives readers some grammatical guidance by presenting the word order in an easy-to-understand fashion. The basic system of the syntactical gloss in the Lambeth Psalter is revealed by Robinson (1973) and O’Neill (1992), yet there seems to be only one study discussing the syntactical feature presented by the Lambeth syntactical gloss: Yamanouchi (2004).
The first purpose of this study is to examine and clarify one of the most distinctive features of the syntax indicated by the Lambeth gloss: the verb-initial word order. This type of word order is strongly preferred through the whole manuscript, and the preference is not attributable to syntax of general Old English texts as observed in Mitchell (1985). After an overview, this study discusses further peculiarities caused by the characteristic word order. Old English has some words used as both conjunction and adverb such as þa and þonne, and in Old English prose the two usages can be distinguished by the word order, especially by the position of the verb. On the other hand, the Lambeth gloss almost always uses the verb-preceding order so that it cannot differentiate the verb position according to the usage of those kinds of Old English words. Then the Lambeth glossator attempts to clarify their usages by adopting both/either of the following two methods: differentiating the adverb position and using the particle þe. These methods are also consistently utilized through the manuscript, which indicates that the glossator was very careful in clarifying the usage of the ambiguous words.
The Lambeth Psalter presents these significant tendencies in glossing, which simplify the word order or clarify the usage of words. Thus, the manuscript and gloss preserve various indications relating to how the glossator was careful in providing readers with grammatical guidance.

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This paper examines the consonant alternation in Old English strong verbs that is attributed to Verner’s Law. It focuses on the three verbs, Class I rīsan “rise”, Class V lesan “collect”, and Class V nesan “escape”, which do not exhibit the expected voicing and rhotacism of the stem-final s in the preterite plural and past participle. This problem has long been explained by internal levelling. Although this view is generally accepted, the reason why only Class I and V verbs, with the exception of OE wesan “be”, lost the s–r consonant alternation in the preterite plural and past participle whilst all Class II verbs retained this type of alternation remains unclear.
　 This paper presents a new hypothesis regarding the loss of the s–r consonant alternation in the three verbs in question. It considers the relationship between the process of rhotacism, which is thought to have occurred in the pre-OE period, and the phonetic environment of verbs that experienced the loss of the consonant alternation. This leads to the conclusion that the loss of the s–r alternation is related to the allophonic distribution of the /r/ sound in Old English, which triggered analogical levelling.

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Teruhiro Hayata proposed the hypothesis that tongue root harmony can be reconstructed within a specific domain of proto-Japonic. Subsequently, Akiyoshi Kida and John Whitman expanded upon Hayata’s proposal; however, their framework did not account for the mutual exclusivity of *u, *o₁, and *o₂ as predicted by Arisaka’s law. To address this limitation, this paper reinterprets Arisaka’s first and second laws as sequences of sound changes. By integrating philological evidence with internal reconstruction, the strictest constraint of Arisaka’s second law can be reformulated through the lens of Fukuda’s law (*o₂ ＞ o₁ /uC＿). However, interpreting Arisaka’s first law as a series of phonological changes presents challenges, as the recursive patterns suggest potential inconsistencies. These issues indicate that a reassessment of the proto-Japonic vowel system may be necessary.

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This paper examines the usage of deaf-related vocabulary in medieval Japanese medical books, both diachronically and synchronically. The study focuses on three key books: Ishin’hō (compiled by a physician in Kyoto during the mid-Heian period), Ton’ishō (compiled by a priest-physician in Kamakura during the late Kamakura period), and Fukuden’hō (compiled by a priest-physician in Kyoto during the Nambokuchō period). By comparing these sources with medieval dictionaries, the study categorizes and analyzes their linguistic characteristics, contributing to the historical understanding of deaf words in Japan. The findings reveal that the terms mimi-shii, mimi-kikazu, and mimi-tsubure, which are associated with two kanji 聾 (rō) or 耳聾 (nirō/jirō), exhibit fluctuations between various opposing linguistic concepts, such as ‘standard translation vs. supplementary Japanese readings’ and ‘Kanbun-style readings vs. colloquial expressions’, depending on their historical context and the characteristics of the medical books in which they appear. Specifically, the mimi-shii family, which includes variations resulting from the Ha-line sound shift, appears sporadically in different editions of Ishin’hō, Ton’ishō, and Fukuden’hō. Additionally, instances of these terms being annotated alongside the mimi-kikazu and mimi-tsubure families were observed. The mimikikazu family also appears sporadically in Ishin’hō, Ton’ishō, and Fukuden’hō, but exhibits a mixed nature—some terms retain strong noun-like qualities, while others remain in their adverbial form. Meanwhile, the mimi-tsubure family is attested in various editions of Fukuden’hō, suggesting that its linguistic history may date back to the Nambokuchō period. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that the deaf words found in medieval Japanese medical books consists of three interrelated lexical systems—mimi-shii, mimi-kikazu, and mimitsubure— which form a multilayered structure diachronically and a multifaceted structure synchronically.

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The study of the historical development of Japanese accent has evolved within a unique context supported by rich philological evidence and diverse regional variations. However, it has largely developed in isolation from general historical linguistic studies, exhibiting a “Galápagos syndrome.” This study acknowledges the advantages and disadvantages of independent evolution. It seeks to place the history of the Japanese accent within the broader framework of tonal languages by characterizing Japanese as a restricted tone language. The discussion will focus on key issues that arise when tracing historical changes in the Kyoto Japanese accent system from the Heian period to the present. Furthermore, it will explore how addressing these issues can contribute to cross-linguistic research on the history of tone systems.

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Historical research on accents of Sino-Japanese words has been largely neglected. Major unresolved issues include how original Chinese pronunciations were assimilated into the Japanese accentual system and how the resulting accent patterns evolved within the framework of Japanese phonological history. This paper discusses topics related to the adaptation of loanwords based on the author’s research on the historical study of Sino-Japanese accents. Specifically, it aims to (1) explore a phase-based perspective for understanding Sino-Japanese word accents within Japanese phonological history, (2) analyze Sino-Japanese word accents through comparative linguistics, and (3) investigate studies on the history of the formation of accent patterns in Sino-Japanese words. Through these discussions, this paper suggests that the study of Sino-Japanese word accents is crucial not only for historical linguistic research specific to Japanese but also for historical linguistics in general.

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