This paper examines the historical transition of deare, niseyo, and nishiro. Deare and niseyo/nishiro are compound particles that contain an imperative from of ari or su(ru) and constitute an adversative hypothetical conditional sentence. Several studies have proved that deare occurred earlier than niseyo, but little attention has been given to when niseyo/nishiro arose and why, even though deare was already being used. Deare and its variants, the conjunctive form of a verb+moare and a noun+nimoare, appeared in the Early Middle Ages, evolved into nitemoare and demoare, and eventually became deare in the Early Modern Age. Niseyo/nishiro and their variants, the conjunctive form of a verb+moseyo, appeared in the first half of the Middle Age, evolved into nimoseyo/nimoshiro in the first half of the Edo period, and became niseyo/nishiro in the latter half. When the use of nimoseyo/nimoshiro began, the colloquial use of nitemo/demoare decreased, and gradually the use of niseyo and its variants exceeded that of deare. There were two causes for this shift: (i) The auxiliary verb su is suitable for expressing an adversative hypothetical conditional about action or motion, and (ii) Nimoseyo/nimoshiro are more convenient than deare because they can be connected to both substantives and inflections.

“-джатта([-dӡatta])” is observed in Russian manuscripts that reflect the 18^th century Kagoshima dialect; this form indicates past as well as negation. Comparing with the documents since the 19^th century, it is revealed that the past and negative form changed from [-dӡatta] to [-ndӡatta] (or [-nӡatta]). Since the Mid-Edo period, the Kagoshima dialect proceeded toward the division of the past and negative forms. Subsequently, this study suggests that the form is derived from the -de+atta based on the analysis of Cyrillic's phonetic value and Japanese notation.

This study examines the ambiguous pitch accents seen in the areas of northeast Tokyo, west Chiba, and east Saitama. In order to clarify the actual situation of these areas, a speaker classification was carried out with 30 speakers from this region, along with 7 speakers from the central Tokyo area, for a total of 37 speakers. This classification was based on the acoustic features of drop range and relative peak. Using cluster analysis, the speaker groups were classified based on appearance trends of those acoustic features into three groups: “clear pitch separation,” “unclear high-low pitch separation,” and “unclear form differentiation.” Analyzing these acoustic features in detail, the “clear pitch separation” group displays a large drop range and a large distance between relative peak positions. On the other hand, the two “unclear” groups show a small separation between high and low pitches, and particularly the “unclear form differentiation” group displays an additional special characteristic of—in addition to the small separation between high and low pitches—a small distance between relative peak positions. The classified speaker groups were then overlaid on a map in order to visualize the variations between individual speakers that are a special characteristic of ambiguous pitch accents. Finally, by positioning each group discovered in analysis according to high-low pitch difference and classification level of decline positions, the accent change in this region was reinterpreted as the interlinking connections of multiple acoustic features.

This paper aims to describe the historical change of aspectual form V-teari which expressed the resultative of change and action in Old Japanese. The resultative of change by V-teari in Ancient Japanese literature has two sentence patterns: one is the sentence whose subject is followed by intransitive verb+ teari, another is the sentence whose object is followed by transitive verb+teari. The resultative of change by V-tari also has the same sentence patterns as those by V-teari.

This paper shows that V-tari sentences of intransitive verb mean the result of change by spontaneity, volitional action and causal relation, whereas V-teari sentences of the verb mean only the result of change by spontaneity and volitional action, lacking the result of change by causal relation.

It is asserted that, on the decline of V-tari(ru)'s usage through the Late Middle Ages, the aspectual meanings of V-tari(ru) shifted to V-tearu and V-teiru, and that, at the beginning of the early modern period, in Kamigata/Keihan documents, V-tearu sentences and V-teiru sentences were used with the selectional restrictions of existence verb aru and iru by animacy as to their subjects, in contrast, in Kanto/Edo documents, V-tearu sentences and V-teiru sentences were used without the restrictions.

It seems that the different usage of V-tearu and V-teiru between Kamigata district and Kanto district is related with how V-tearu and V-teiru are used in Modern Japanese.

This paper aims to predict the diffusion of Western loanwords in contemporary Japanese based on the apparent-time hypothesis. An s-curve model is employed to predict the probability of the occurrence of 17 loanwords as opposed to their native equivalents.

Self-reports in previous questionnaire-based surveys show that loanwords are divided into two groups according to distribution by age. One shows a typical s-shaped curve, with the occurrence of loanwords monotonically increasing from older to younger generations. The other takes an s-shaped curve that ends in a drop in loanword occurrence among those in their late teens and/or twenties.

This delay in acquisition arguably reflects the age-specific domain of use of the loanwords in question. It is predicted that speakers acquire these as their ages increase. Consequently, both types of diffusion should be predictable with one monotonically increasing s-curve model. This raises the question of how the influence of the ‘acquisitional delay’ could be separated from the speakers' birth-year effect without excluding the data of the youngest generations. The problem is shown to be solved by including an ‘acquisition factor’ into the model as one of the independent variables.

The inclusion of this new variable, as a result, brings advantages in a more accurate prediction of change: it enables us to elicit the birth-year effect alone, and in turn, corrects underestimations of the rate of change.

This paper investigates two Japanese case-marking particles —yori and wo— that follow motion verbs in Konjaku Monogatarishū, an anthology of Japanese folk tales. Specifically, it focuses on whether the particles signify a start point or route of the motion. Motion verbs were categorized into four groups (A to D) according to the particles followed and their semantic significations. For verbs in Group A, yori signifies both the start point and the route, whereas wo represents only the former. Particles in all other groups signify only the start point, whereas the verbs in Group B connect with yori, those in Group C with wo, and those in Group D with both particles. Interestingly, the verb izu in Group D exhibits a tendency to take the particle yori when it means appearance, whereas the verb connects with the particle wo when signifying departure. Furthermore, the meanings of appearance and departure correspond with the semantic features of the verbs in Group B and C, respectively. Consequently, this paper proposes that the functions of the particles are determined according to the semantic features of motion verbs.

This paper discusses voiced fricative geminates in Kuroshima Ryukyuan, as in /zza/ ‘grass’.

1. The voiced fricative geminates and singletons have phonological distinction.

2. The voiced fricative geminates must be set in the base form.

3. Although the realisation of the voiced geminate fricatives shows variants, the variation can reasonably be understood on the basis of a typological tendency.

The voiced fricative geminates and singletons differ in the morphophonology when they occur in non-initial position of compounds. While the geminates may be devoiced, the singletons never show such an alternation. Upon this morphophonological distinction, it follows that they have phonological distinction. Furthermore, the reasons for speculating the voiced fricative geminates on the base form are presented through investigation on its language specific phenomena (verbal conjunction and vowel assimilation) and the typological tendency.

There are three types of subject markers, no, ga and ϕ in Old Japanese. This paper examines what determines the distribution of these three subject markers in noun clauses in Old Japanese. By analyzing corpus data, this paper argues that the use of the three subject markers is subject to two conditions, one is their size of structure in noun clauses, and the other is the function of strongly indicating a subject.

The main condition which determines the subject marker in noun clauses in Old Japanese is the size of noun clause structure. The particle no functions as a subject marker when the noun clauses are expanded, whereas ϕ functions as a subject marker when the noun clauses are small and closed inside the noun clauses. The particle ga's size of structure is between no and ϕ. In this paper, the size of structure correlates with the number of the complement which can appear in noun clauses. Each subject marker has a characteristic distribution in noun clauses in their usage, which indicates the use of three subject markers following their size of noun clause structure.

The particle ga also functions as the marker of strongly indicating a subject which comes from the original function of ga. However, the function of strongly indicating a subject is a secondary condition to determine the subject marker in noun clauses, because the particle ga was only on the rise as a subject marker in Old Japanese, and no and ϕ are unmarked concerning the indicating function.