Early Middle Japanese

Early Middle Japanese
中古日本語
Spoken in	Japan
Language extinction	Evolved into Late Middle Japanese at the end of the 12th century
Language family	Japonic Early Middle Japanese
Writing system	Hiragana, Katakana, and Han
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	–
ISO 639-3	ojp
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Early Middle Japanese (中古日本語, chūko nihongo^?)^[1] is a stage of the Japanese language used between 794 and 1185, a time known as the Heian Period. It is the successor to Old Japanese.

Contents 1 Background 2 Phonemes 3 Phonological developments 4 Phonetics 4.1 Vowels 4.2 Consonants 4.2.1 Phonetic Realization 4.2.1.1 /s, z/ 4.2.1.2 /ɸ/ 4.2.1.3 /r/ 5 Syllable structure 6 Grammar 6.1 Verbs 6.1.1 Conjugation 6.1.2 Consonant / Vowel Stem 6.1.3 Irregular Verbs 6.2 Adjectives 7 Writing system 8 Notes 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Background

Whereas Old Japanese borrowed and adapted the Chinese script to write Japanese, during the Early Middle Japanese period two new scripts emerge: Hiragana and Katakana. This development simplified writing and brought about a new age in literature with such classics as The Tale of Genji, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, The Tales of Ise and many others.

This section requires expansion.

Phonemes

Whereas Old Japanese made 88 syllabic distinctions, Early Middle reduces that count to 66.

a	i	u	e	o
ka	ki	ku	ke	ko
ga	gi	gu	ge	go
sa	si	su	se	so
za	zi	zu	ze	zo
ta	ti	tu	te	to
da	di	du	de	do
na	ni	nu	ne	no
ha	hi	hu	he	ho
ba	bi	bu	be	bo
ma	mi	mu	me	mo
ya		yu		yo
ra	ri	ru	re	ro
wa	wi		we

Phonological developments

Major phonological changes are a characteristic of this period.

The most prominent difference is the loss of Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, which distinguished between two types of -i, -e, and -o. While the beginnings of this loss can already be seen at the end of Old Japanese, it is completely lost early in Early Middle Japanese. The final phonemes to be lost are /ko₁/ and /ko₂/.^[2]

During the 10th century, /e/ and /ye/ merge into /e/ while /o/ and /wo/ merge into /o/ by the 11th century.^[3][4][5]

An increase in Chinese loanwords had a number of phonological effects:

• Palatal and labial consonant clusters such as /kw/ and /ky/
• Uvular nasal [ɴ]
• Length became a phonetic feature with the development of both long vowels and long consonants

The development of the uvular nasal and geminated consonants occurred late in the Heian period and brought about the introduction of closed syllables (CVC). ^[6]

Other changes include:

• The change of the prenasalized consonants to voiced consonants^{[citation needed]}
• The change in timing from syllable-timing to mora-timing^{[citation needed]}

Phonetics

Vowels

• /a/: [a]
• /i/: [i]
• /u/: [u]
• /e/: [je]^[3][4][5]
• /o/: [wo]

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Bilabial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal		m		n
Plosive			t	d			k	ɡ
Fricative	ɸ		s	z
Tap or flap				ɾ
Approximant						j		w

Phonetic Realization

/s, z/

Theories for the realization of /s, z/ include [s, z], [ts, dz], and [ʃ, ʒ]. It may have varied depending on the following vowel, as it does with modern Japanese.^{[citation needed]}

/ɸ/

By the 11th century, intervocalic /ɸ/ had merged with /w/. ^[7]

/r/

/r/: [r] ^[8]

Syllable structure

This section requires expansion.

Grammar

This section requires expansion.

Verbs

Early Middle Japanese inherits all eight verbal conjugations from Old Japanese and adds one new one: Lower Monograde.

Conjugation

Verb Class	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
Quadrigrade	-a	-i	-u	-u	-e	-e
Upper Monograde	-	-	-ru	-ru	-re	-(yo)
Upper Bigrade	-i	-i	-u	-uru	-ure	-i(yo)
Lower Monograde	-e	-e	-eru	-eru	-ere	-e(yo)
Lower Bigrade	-e	-e	-u	-uru	-ure	-e(yo)
K-irregular	-o	-i	-u	-uru	-ure	-o
S-irregular	-e	-i	-u	-uru	-ure	-e(yo)
N-irregular	-a	-i	-u	-uru	-ure	-e
R-irregular	-a	-i	-i	-u	-e	-e

Consonant / Vowel Stem

Verbs having a base that ends in a consonant are known as consonant-stem. These are exhibited by the following conjugation classes: Quadrigrade, Upper Bigrade, Lower Monograde, Lower Bigrade, S-irregular, R-irregular, K-irregular, and N-irregular.

Verbs having a base that ends in a vowel are known as vowel-stem. These are exhibited by the following conjugation classes: Upper Monograde.

Irregular Verbs

There are several verbs with irregular conjugations.

• K-irregular: k- "come"
• S-irregular: s- "do"
• N-irregular: sin- "die", in- "go, die"
• R-irregular: ar- "be, exist", wor- "be, exist"

The conjugation class for each is named after the final stem consonant.

Adjectives

There were two types of adjectives: regular adjectives and adjectival nouns.

The regular adjective is sub-classified into two types: those where the adverbial form (連用形) ends in -ku and those that end in -siku. This creates two different types of conjugations:

Adjective Class	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
-ku		-ku	-si	-ki	-kere
	-kara	-kari	-si	-karu		-kare
-siku		-siku	-si	-siki	-sikere
	-sikara	-sikari	-si	-sikaru		-sikare

The -kar- and -sikar- forms are derived from the verb ar- "be, exists". The adverbial conjugation (-ku or -siku) is suffixed with ar-. The conjugation yields to the R-irregular conjugation of ar-. The resulting -ua- elides into -a-.

The adjectival noun retains the original nar- conjugation and adds a new tar-:

Type	Irrealis	Adverbial	Conclusive	Attributive	Realis	Imperative
Nar-	-nara	-nari -ni	-nari	-naru	-nare	-nare
Tar-	-tara	-tari -to	-tari	-taru	-tare	-tare

The nar- and tar- forms share a common etymology. The nar- form is a contraction of case particle ni and r-irregular verb ar- "is, be": ni + ar- > nar-. The tar- form is a contraction of case particle to and r-irregular verb ar- "is, be": to + ar- > tar-. Both derive their conjugations from the verb ar-.

Writing system

Early Middle Japanese was written in three different ways. It was first recorded in Man'yōgana, Chinese characters used as a phonetic transcription as in Early Old Japanese. This usage later produced the hiragana and katakana syllabic scripts which were derived from simplifications of the original Chinese characters.

Notes

1. ^ Martin (1987:77)
2. ^ Yoshida, 2001: 64
3. ^ ^{a b} Kondō (2005:67-71)
4. ^ ^{a b} Yamaguchi (1997:43-45)
5. ^ ^{a b} Frellesvig (1995:73)
6. ^ Nakata (1972:26-29)
7. ^ Vovin (2002:14-15)
8. ^ Miyake (2003:176-177)

See also

• Bungo

References

External links

v • d • e Japanese language History Old Japanese · Early Middle Japanese · Late Middle Japanese · Modern Japanese · Contemporary Japanese Dialects Kansai · Kesen · Mino · Nagoya · Iyo · Saga Literature Books · List of classic texts · List of writers · Poetry Scripts Logograms Kanji Kana Man'yōgana · Hentaigana · Hiragana · Katakana · Furigana · Okurigana Romanization Hepburn · Nihon-shiki · Kunrei · JSL · Wāpuro rōmaji