Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Forum
u.osu.edu/beal
2014 BEAL Forum: Keynote speaker abstract.
How many syllables are reflected in Early Middle Japanese yo?
From one end of Japanese language history to the other
James Marshall Unger
The Ohio State University
According to the longstanding standard theory or teisetsu going back to
Hashimoto Shinkichi, there were two distinct syllables yo1 and yo2 in Old
Japanese, which merged by the Heian period into yo. This claim was challenged by Roland A. Lange in the 1970s, who presented cogent evidence
against it from his study of Man’yōshū. It is interesting to note that the
history of the word for 'sulfur', which I here trace back from the present day
to the Early Heian period, corroborates Lange's argument in an unexpected
way.
Institute for Chinese Studies • Institute for Japanese Studies • Institute for Korean Studies
East Asian Studies Center • College of Arts and Sciences
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures • Department of Linguistics
Graduate Association of Chinese Linguistics • Graduate Students of East Asian Languages and Literatures
Council on Student Affairs • U.S. Department of Education (Title VI Grant)