One of the most notable historical features of Japanese writing was the coexistence of two or more writing styles. Therefore, in the historical research of Japanese writing systems, one of the most important problems is to solve why two or more writing styles coexisted and how the uses of two or more writing styles were distinguished. Current historical research into Japanese writing systems has suggested only the indexes of formality and informality for these questions. But this is clearly insufficient to give a satisfactory explanation for that historical phenomenon. So, this thesis emphasizes the viewpoints of generality and distinctiveness for historical research into Japanese writing systems. In this research field, generality and distinctiveness have two levels as follows.(1) Generality and distinctiveness of the literate society within the whole society. (2) Generality and distinctiveness of a specific writing system in the literate society. Each element of these is related to the cause of transition and the transition speed of the writing systems. To be more concrete, in the non-general literate society, new writing systems were easily invented, and each writing system was frequently distinctive; in the general literate society, each writing system was also to become general, and new writing systems were not easily invented. The turning points between these aspects of things were connected with the collapse of the ancient social systems that called Ritsuryo-sei.

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The everyday language of lower-ranking samurai at the close of the feudal era in Japan is depicted in Kuwana Nikki (Diary of Kuwana). By examining this linguistic data within the context of the story and in conjunction with the characters' social standing as reflected in the Kuwana clan's register, the author was able to shed some light on a facet of honorifics in samurai society. In Kuwana Nikki, the verb kuru as used in daily interactions has five honorific forms: oidenasaru, gozarashiru, gozaru, kinasaru, and kinaru. The first three honorific forms are used depending on the social relationship of the conversation participants. In contrast, the latter two forms are used with close friends and in relaxed, casual situations regardless of the social relationship of the conversation participants. The plain form kuru itself is seen to have a lower level of deference, and is used in situations where one of the conversation participants' social standing is felt to be considerably lower than the other.

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This paper deals with respect terms used by the Makioka sisters in Sasameyuki. The Makioka sisters are the key figures in Sasameyuki. They use respect terms of the Kansai district dialect and of standard Japanese. First, the respect suffix haru is used by the Makioka sisters many times. With godan-doshi (consonant-stem verbs) Sachiko, the second sister, often uses the a-haru type and Taeko, the youngest sister, often uses the ya-haru type (a sound contraction type). With ichidan-doshi (vowel-stem verbs) we find a common usage among the sisters. On verbs with a one-syllabled stem, such as deru or miru, they use the ya-haru type and on verbs with a two-syllabled stem, such as dekiru or miseru, they use the i-haru or the e-haru types. Second, the Makioka sisters use the respect suffix nasaru, which is used in Semba-kotoba (the speech of Semba). When nasaru is a supplementary verb, it is a respect term in Semba-kotoba. When nasaru is a main verb, it is a term of respect in standard Japanese. Lastly, as far as standard Japanese is concerned, the Makioka sisters use various respectful terms: -reru, -rareru, o-ninaru, o-, go-, -irassharu, and individual lexical respect words. Especially, I found that Sachiko use the -reru and -rareru types when referring to unspecified people, a field of usage which has usually been the domain of haru-keigo.

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In this paper, I discuss the basic aspect-tense system in the Tohoku dialects. The past durative markers -teatta, -tedeatta are used in the Akita dialect. In the Hiraka, Hachinohe, and Morioka dialects, -teratta, -tedatta are used, and in Fukushima, -tetatta is used as the past durative marker. In the Tohoku dialects, -teta is generally used as the past and present durative marker, but in the Hiraka, Hachinohe, and Morioka dialects, -tera is used. The past-perfective marker -tatta is used in the Hiraka, Hachinohe, Morioka, and Fukushima dialects. The sentence-final particle -ke is frequently used with -ta as the past expression in the Higashine dialect. Originally, the past durative marker -teatta was used widely, but in many dialects of the Tohoku district, -teatta had been changed to -tatta by a phonetic change. -tatta at first functioned as a durative marker. But later, the aspectual function of -tatta has been shifted from durative to perfective. This is because the 'te' morpheme, which is a durative aspect marker, was lost. Finally, -tatta is used as the past perfective marker. For the stability of the grammatical system and the realization of aspectual binary opposition, -tetatta has arisen. Through a comparison of the aspect-tense systems of different dialects, I show an example of the change of a linguistic form due to the necessity of stability in a grammatical system.

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[in Japanese]

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