GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan)
Online ISSN : 2185-6710
Print ISSN : 0024-3914
The Liquid and Stem-final Vowel Alternations of Verbs in Ancient Japanese
Teruhiro HAYATA
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2000 Volume 2000 Issue 118 Pages 5-27

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to clarify the phonological motivation for the stem-final /i-u/ and /e-u/ alternations of verbs, as well as properties of liquids in Ancient Japanese. I explore the possibility of a connection between the stem-final vowel alternations in verbs and certain properties of liquid consonants.
Present-day Japanese, at least the Tookyoo dialect, does not exhibit stem-final /i-u/ and /e-u/ alternations of verbs. Some modern dialects, e.g., those in Kyuushuu, exhibit alternation only in /e/-stem verbs, but not in /i/-stem verbs. This /e-u/ alternation is a relic of Ancient Japanese.
There has been only one liquid phoneme in Japanese throughout its history, whose phonetic realization remains an issue for phonologists.

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