Digraphic Transcriptions of Mono-syllabics in Old Japanese and TheirImplications*SVEN OSTERKAMP

Kyoto University

1. IntroductionThe present paper deals with spellings of monosyllabic words and names inOJ consisting of two phonograms, the sound values of which add up to se-quences of the type /CV°V/ or /°V°V/.50 For instance, the commentary

The author would like to thank Alexander Vovin for his valuable comments on an earlier draftof this paper.50Following Rickmeyer 1992 the symbol <°> is employed to explicitly mark syllables com-monly deemed to lack consonantal initials. The exact nature of l°l - a phonetic zero, a glottalstop [?], or a homorganic glide before /i, u/, i.e. [j, w]? - is rather elusive and thus left open forthe time being. Here and in the following V serves as a place holder for any vowel, C for anyconsonant (other than /°/).For the sake of brevity the somewhat misleading term "vowel" is used to refer to the eightpost-consonantal distinctions of OJ, although the actual phonetic values of some or even all ofthem may have comprised more than just single vowels. Subscript numerals are employedthroughout as a neutral way to indicate membership of vowels in either type A or B (i.e. koruiEFH and otsurui ZL%jH).

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Shin'yaku Kegonkyd ongi shiki ^fgR^Jlfcli^il^ifi (late Nara) providesthe gloss JJP^c /ka°a/ for wenrui $$.$$ 'mosquito'. While a single phono-gram for /ka/ would have been sufficient to render the word in question, i.e.ka 'mosquito', an additional phonogram /°a/ repeating the vowel alreadyrendered by #0 /ka/ is added, thus explicitly writing the word as having along vowel.

The general principle at work here, namely that sound values in isola-tion are not necessarily retained in actual contexts, is still to be observed inmodern kana usage. While fo /ka/ and fe /°a/ have monosyllabic readingsin isolation, a concatenation of the two need not result in a sequence of twosyllables, but may as well be used to render a single syllable, albeit this timeone with a long vowel, as in &#*&>£ A/ /°okasan/ (not */°oka°asan/)'mother'.

The fundamental difference between the cases under consideration inthis paper and their modern counterparts is that while modern standard Jap-anese has only five vowel phonemes, all of which are free not only to com-bine with consonant initials to give syllables of the type /CVY but also toform syllables by themselves (/°V/), OJ is known to distinguish up to eightdifferent vowels in /CV/, whereas the number of possible /°V/ does not ex-ceed five. Careful examination of the relation between the eight post-consonantal distinctions and the five vocalic syllables in digraphic render-ings of monosyllables may thus provide valuable insights into the phoneticnature of the former - the reconstructions of which are by far more contro-versial than those of the latter.

The earliest attempt at gathering digraphic spellings of monosyllabicplace names (which still make up the greatest part of the cases even if non-onomastic materials are added to these) was carried out by no one less thanfamous scholar of "National Learning" Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801 CE)shortly before his death. In his Chimei jion ten'yorei #&% ^^l^fflf^J(1800 CE) he lists as many as fourteen cases (counting distinct spellingsonly), at times even providing alternative renderings attested in or beforeHeian times. Regrettably this is already almost where Motoori's interest inthese names seems to have ended and thus little more is stated than thatthese constitute cases with additional phonograms added copying the"rhyme" 51 of the preceding syllable so as to comply with the standardlength of place names of exactly two graphs. The enormous potential of thespellings collected by Motoori, be it for the recovery of certain aspects of

^I.e. hibiki t ^^r 'echo, reverbation', written IS (Motoori 1800: 20b etc.) in allusion to thelermyun it Thyme' as used in traditional Chinese phonology.

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OJ phonetics or for dialectology, is left entirely unmentioned, if not evenunnoticed.

Surprisingly works on Japanese historical phonology putting Motoori'sor analogous cases into use appear to be few and far between. Among thefew ones easily discoverable is Arisaka Hideyo's posthumously publishedJodai on'inko ±ft:i1ii^C (1955). Having already adduced renderings oflong vowels to elucidate the vocalism of Heian period Japanese (1955: 376-7), he finally cites several place names from the OJ corpus. His treatment ofcases in -o (1955: 393) remains unsatisfactory however, as he readily ac-cepts the notion of gaps in the syllable inventory of OJ and hence also thatof alleged makeshift solutions (on both of which see below), thus greatlydiminishing the spellings' evidential value. Arisaka's (1955: 443-5) treat-ment of the few known cases in -e fares better, but is not flawless either.This is true for both the materials he uses52 as well part of the underlyingassumptions of his conclusions.

Shortcomings in Arisaka's assumptions - namely that falling diph-thongs of the structure [Vj] would have lengthening indicated by a phono-gram for [i], whereas in fact not the off-glide [j] but the main vowel [V]should be prolonged - were already pointed out by Gunther Wenck in thelate 1950s. Being well aware of Arisaka's ideas, Wenck (1959: 210, n. 46)mentions his treatment of one of the cases in -e merely to conclude in de-claring his attempt as failed. Despite his awareness he does not howeverappear to have adduced any such cases himself as evidence for the recon-struction of OJ vocalism in his Phonetik.

2. PreliminariesOne can imagine at least two possible arguments which, if valid indeed,would greatly diminish the value of the cases adduced in the present paper.

First, how can one be sure that spellings of the type /CV°V/ or /°V°V/are in fact to be read as one syllable only? How can disyllabic readings beruled out? While no definite answer comprising the entirety of cases can begiven, there are two straightforward indicators for monosyllables: (1) vari-ant spellings of the type /CV/ or /°V/, that is, monosyllabic renderings with-out explicit vowel lengthening, and (2) monosyllabic glosses in works likethe early 10th century Wamyd ruijusho fH^H^t^ (WMS). A number ofexamples for both types are found in Table I.53

52To be more specific, Arisaka works on the assumption that the spelling of the modern placename Ei M£i can be projected back to OJ times unaltered and further that its then-reading was/ye°e/. As we will argue later on both assumptions are false. See Appendix II for details.^See Appendix I for more detailed information on the actual attestations.

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Placename

spellings explicitlyindicating vowel length

short spellingsreading

gloss

Ee/ye(no)/

Ki2i ,frZ /ki2/Ki2i /ki2/

Piii Jt /fi/Pi2iPi2i !k /pi2/

Pon)o III /pon/

So2o/S02°0/

, ,

/so2/

TeeTii *P(7!0 /ti(no)/Tuu /tu°u/Tuu /tu°u/

Woo/wo°o/

J! /wo/

Yuu /yu°u/ JH /yu/Table I: Indicators for monosyllabic readings

There can be little doubt as to the number of syllables rendered by/CV°VY- or /°V°V/-type spellings such as those given in the table above. Aslong as nothing suggests the contrary, the same interpretation will be ex-tended to analogous spellings lacking explicit indicators of either type in theremainder of this paper.

Second, as at least from the early 8th century onwards there evidentlywere certain official regulations in effect which required for major placenames (i.e. names of provinces, districts and villages) among other things tobe exactly two graphs in length. In other words, older spellings falling shortof phonograms had to be expanded - if necessary by repetition of soundsalready covered -, whereas overly long ones were subject to shortening.54 A

The regulations themselves as well as some of their more curious side-effects have alreadybeen explored on another occasion (Osterkamp 2007). Examples for expanded and abbreviatedspellings would be Tuno, #Bf (oftrlllliii^Sfl, WMS VII/3b: fPT!/ /tuno/) and Adipatima $:A (Hiittl!, WMS V/16b: no gloss), for instance. The latter's full reading is elucidated by theolder spelling 9fc#f8](iB) (DNK I/I [^S 2], VII/1 [ftffi 2]; also found on mokkan), as forthe former a mokkan from the Ishigami ^EW site reading Tunoi ^(M) (late 7th century?) demon-strates that the WMS's reading Tuno is not the result of haplology (i.e. < Tunoinoi), but

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certain level of artificiality might be expected from spellings unlikely tooccur under normal circumstances.

While these regulations might well be responsible for part of the casesfound in Appendix I, it is impossible to have them account for their entirety.For instance, digraphic renderings of monosyllabics are not restricted toplace names only. There are no cogent reasons to assume that official regu-lations intended for place name spellings exerted influence on other types ofspellings as well. Furthermore the scope of these regulations seem to havebeen limited to the three hierarchical layers of administration named above,so that other names such as those of shrines and relay stations or naturalfeatures like islands and rivers were unaffected. Even superficial study ofthe spellings of such names in works from the OJ corpus reveals that theyenjoyed far more freedom in form than district names for instance. To quoteonly one example: In the Izumo fudoki {±5StM±f£ (IF; 733 CE) we findthe name of an island spelled ff;s(lo), i.e. /ko2°o/, but adjacent entries ofother islands are often only one graph in length. Thus there is no reason toassume any artificiality in this digraphic rendering.

Likewise there are cases that appear to predate the regulations' takingeffect: The early place names recorded in volume X of Sendai kuji hongi ^cftlH^^lB (early Heian, but generally held to be based on much earlierrecords here) show little concern about a strict length of two graphs, but stillone finds cases like rf?H{^ /ki2°i/ among them. The same applies to attesta-tions from early mokkan. One wooden tablet excavated from the Fujiwa-rakyu ^J^'B' site dated 695 CE might serve as an example here as it con-tains the spelling Tfcj^t /ki2°i/ (Mokkan kenkyu 5: 84), referring to one of themany places of that pronunciation. As artificiality can be ruled out withcertainty here, it appears justified to interpret other cases in the same veinalong similar lines.

Having taken care of two potential problems, we will now turn our at-tention to what such spellings can tell us about OJ phonetics. To illustratehow our observations could be adduced in concrete terms as a means ofevaluating existing phonetic reconstructions of OJ, two recent and quitesimilar systems were consulted, namely those of Miyake (1999, 2003) andMori (1991). For comparative purposes occasional reference will also bemade to other proposals such as those found in Lange 1973 and Unger 1975,which unlike Miyake and Mori posit prevocalic glides /j, w/ to account forall A/B type distinctions.

merely appears unusual due to the fact that the official spelling was expanded by means of asuperfluous phonogram if /noi/ repeating the 2nd syllable of the name.

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Instead of dealing with the known examples case by case, we will firstgive an overview of the phonograms used in second position of digraphictranscriptions classified by OJ vowels in Table II. For detailed informationconcerning the actual attestations of the spellings quoted throughout thispaper the interested reader is referred to Appendix I.

"vowel"type

-a

syllable

°aka

phonograms used and their sound values

M?a^?an

/°a//°a(nV)/

-ii

~l(3)

-12

MijPi,TiWiKi2

Pi2

& ?/U&w&w&ffi& w&?/!/

^yijH ^yij

r\i

-U

KuTuYu

^h/uX^hjuX^hjuX

^f hjuwX /°u/

-C(3)

-e2

TeE°e

^?ej£i ?ei

^?ceH/°e/

-Oi

-0(3)

-02

No,PomTo,WoKo2

So2

^?jofc?jo

^?jo

W?/o

W?/o

W?/o

ft ?joHft ?joH

Hr?iH

nun/°o/

Table II55: Phonograms used to indicate vowel length

The second column contains the OJ syllables for which diagraphic spellings are attested,whereas columns three to six list all phonograms (for reference together with their MC read-ings in italics) that are used to indicate long vowels in these syllables. The final column indi-cates the sound value of all phonograms to its left in OJ usage.Onomastic cases are marked by initial upper-case letters. Phonograms in digraphic Heian peri-od glosses were excluded. Here and elsewhere in this paper Middle Chinese (MC) readings are

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The cases in -u are for the most part self-explanatory and without far-reaching implications, as the vowels in /°u/ and /Cu/ are universally deemedidentical and for both the MC rhymes Hdu & -ju and You ;£ -juw are theusual equivalents. The following will therefore concentrate on the transcrip-tions of monosyllables in -/, -o and -e as well as their significance for histor-ical phonology.

3. Transcriptions of monosyllables in -i

3.1. Monosyllables in -/As is evident from Table II, the majority of long vowels in -/ are renderedby ffi (MC ?jij\e most common phonogram for OJ /°i/ as well as thesource for the later katakana ^ l°\l. Only for the syllable /ki2/ other meansof expressing vowel prolongation are attested, namely if£ and M. Of thesethe latter graph was likewise used for OJ /°i/, albeit much less commonlythan f^. As (MC yijH) is a near-homophone of M (MC yif) in MC, therecan be little doubt that this graph, too, stands for OJ /°i/ here.

It is important to notice here that there is not the slightest attempt to beobserved to use separate phonograms depending on whether the long vowelis -// or -/2, or even their neutralized counterpart -/^, although -// and -i2 arecommonly claimed to have distinct main vowels. The following table sum-marizes the relevant portions of Mori's and Miyake's reconstructions,namely their assumed sound values for -iy and -i2, as well as their treatmentof neutral -i(3) and the initial-less syllable /°i/.

MoriMiyake

-ii -

Table III: Phonetic reconstructions of syllables in -/

Should either of the above reconstructions be accepted, long vowels in-volving -/ would be expected to resemble the phonetic notations providedon the left-hand side of Table IV. For comparative purposes phonetic inter-pretations of actually attested phonogram spellings are given on the right-hand side.

given in Baxter's 1992 notation. Note that "suffixed" -A'and -//denote MC 2nd and 3rd tone (i.e.shdngsheng _h3? and qiisheng 1?) respectively and are not to be understood as segments.^Miyake's "y" has been replaced with "j" throughout. While favoring *ij (i.e. his *iy) as areconstruction for OJ -12, Miyake (2003: 220) writes *i "for simplicity".

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CiiCi2

C1(3)°iwi

Mori*

*[Ci:]

MiyakeCi:]

*[Ci:]

*[»:]*[wi:]

Mori*[Ci

Miyake

] + *[i]^rr^ii -i- ^rii ^rr^i/i^i -i- ^FJILV-''J T^ i^ij i L ^J/J L J

*[Ci] + *[i]not attested*[wi] + *[i]

S?s

sTable IV: Theoretical long vowels in -/' versus actual renderings

If the spelling Hf^ /mi°i/ for the name of a certain shrine in Tajima istaken as an example, a simple concatenation of the reconstructed soundvalues of H /mi/ and ffi /°i/, i.e. *[mi] and *[i] according to both Mori andMiyake, would already result in *[mii], a reasonably good match for the ex-pected pronunciation of long /mi/ as *[mi:]. The distance between the two isthen no greater than the one between the isolated sound values of \~C. I ml [pi]and V ^ l\l [i] and their pronunciation in an actual context like ^V^/v/niisan/ [ni.saN] 'elder brother'. As -i(3) is deemed identical to -// in bothreconstructions, cogent interpretations of disyllabic transcriptions are readi-ly available here as well.

Matters change however as soon as it comes to cases involving -i2, aswith the well-known province name spelled |Bf^ /ki2°i/. In Mori's andMiyake's systems phonetic structures like *[ki:] and *[ki:(j)] would be ex-pected, whereas replacing /ki2/ and l°\l with their assumed values in fact re-sults in the hypothetical readings *[Cii] and *[Ci(j)i] for jfcffi. The distancebetween the expected pronunciation and the actual one as rendered in pho-nograms is evidently considerably greater for cases in -i2 than it was for -/'/and neutral -i(3).

Any reconstruction system unable to provide cogent explanations forsuch obvious discrepancies cannot be readily accepted as valid. Now thereseems to be an elegant way out of this dilemma, simply by declaring caseslike TJSf^" to be mere makeshift solutions: In Mori's scenario for instancethere is no such syllable as *[i] in OJ, thus there cannot be any phonogramsto write this non-existing syllable either. As a consequence, intended *[ki:]cannot be rendered as *[kn], which could serve as an explanation why only*[kii], which is likely to be the next-best and easy-to-render match, is at-tested.

In fact a similar line of argument was already taken up by Arisaka(1955: 393) for analogous cases in -o, but elegant as this way out may seemat first glance, it inevitably leads to another major problem in need of a so-lution: If the difference between the A and B series of OJ vowels was in factone of distinct main vowels, why aren't there eight distinct vocalic syllables

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(i.e. /°VY) to begin with? Table V below illustrates where the alleged gaps inthe phonemic system of OJ are located (where Mori's reconstruction differsfrom Miyake's the former's are given above the latter's).

/cv/

/°v/

-a*[Q]

*[a]*M*[a]°«

-*/. (3)

*[i]

*[i]

°i

-h*M

*[Ki)l

0

-I*

*[u]

*[u]

°tt

-«/. (3)

*[e]

9

-<?2

*[<*]

*[3j]

*[36]

*[3j]

°£?

-0;. (3)

*[o]

9

-02

*M

*[3]

°0

Table V: Vocalic distinctions in /CV/ versus /°V/

In other words, unlike the remaining five vowels -i2, -ej and -Oj neverconstitute vocalic syllables /°V/ by themselves but are limited to the post-consonantal position in /CV/-type syllables. While such a skewed distribu-tion cannot be dismissed as impossible,57 it certainly requires a phoneticmotivation or historical background of some sort - something which is notusually provided in proposals on OJ phonetics.

While interpretations as makeshift solutions cannot be ruled out alto-gether, they lack persuasiveness due to unmotivated and unexplained gapsin the OJ syllable inventory. The data presented above are thus inconclusive.It goes without saying however that the renderings of long vowels in -/ caneasily accounted for by reconstructions positing sound values like *[i] and*[wi] respectively for -z/ and -i2 as it is done in Unger 1975 for instance:The main vowel is identical in both cases, hence it is only natural that pro-longed vowels of either type are rendered by the same means. In generalUnger's views also have the advantage that they successfully avoid unnec-essary gaps in the syllabic inventory.In fact there is another independent piece of evidence suggesting that -// and-/2 shared the same main vowel that deserves mentioning, if only en passant.This is to be found in a work commonly known as Kakyo hydshiki l^HUi^ (KH; 772 CE),58 the earliest extant work on poetical theory written inJapan and also one stressing the importance of certain rhyming patterns. As

'Compare Late Middle Japanese, which lacked /°e/ and /°o/ but nevertheless allowed both Idand /o/ in /CV/-type syllables. This situation finds its explanation in two mergers in EarlyMiddle Japanese, namely /°e, ye > ye/ and /°o, wo > wo/.58While there are some deviations from usual OJ orthography in the phonographically writtenportions of this work, as would be expected from late Nara times, notably confusion of -o/ and-o2 after coronal initials, the opposition of-/; versus -12 seems to be intact (see Ono 1962: 994-6 for a list and discussion of spelling errors in KH).

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was already pointed out by Arisaka (1955: 404-5), one of the poems ad-duced as examples herein contains a rhyme between H lim\l and 9£ /mi2/.All other rhyming sequences found in the example poems are straightfor-ward, thus making it highly unlikely that only here the author deviated fromchoosing actual rhymes to claim interrhyming between *[mi] and *[mi] ~*[mi(j)].59 Rhymes between *[mi] and *[mwi] on the other hand wouldhardly be surprising.

3.2. Monosyllables in -oThe situation of cases in -o resembles that of the aforementioned ones in -/'to quite some extent: First, regardless of whether the syllable in questionsends in -oh -o2 or -o(3), one and the same means is used to indicate pro-longed vowels. The most widely used phonograms are 1& and tffc (both MC?jo), the former being the default choice to render OJ /°o/ in general. Theremaining instances have either ffc (MC Pjoff, i.e. a near-homophone of t^and B^, though often confused with the more common graph IS, MC bjonff)or iic (MC ?iH, however with *s as its main vowel in Old Chinese), thestandard graph for /°o/ in the oldest layer of man 'yogana. Apart from therare fft, which is only attested for -o/ (or possibly also -o(3) depending onthe actual age of the spelling |£tft for Poj > Po(3)), all other phonograms arewell attested for both -Oj and -o2, and 1& and tffc even for -o(3) as well at thesame time.

Second, Mori and Miyake univocally reconstruct -o/ and -o2 with en-tirely different main vowels, only one of which can also occur in /°V/-typesyllables. Their reconstructions are summarized below:

Mori&Miyake

-0]

*[o]

-02

*W

-0(3}

= 0,

Pol

= 02

Table VI: Phonetic reconstructions of syllables in -o

Much like before -o/ shows a skewed distribution as it never occurswith /% In a way the case of -o/ is even far more problematic than the oneof-/2, as unlike the A/B distinction of-/ and -e the one of-o is not limited to[+grave] initials (/k, g, p, b, m/) but holds for virtually every consonant ini-

5"The same poem is found in K as well, but as one line division in KH is not in compliancewith the usual interpretation for the song in K (i.e. "faulty"), Ono (1962: 994) even doubtsFujiwara no Hamanari H^^fifc (724-790) to be the author of this work. Notwithstanding theproblems in interpreting the poem as given in KH there is no doubt however that the two sylla-bles were considered to form a rhyme by the KH's author as they are explicitly marked as such.

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Ttial there is in OJ, albeit it was lost after labial initials fairly early. If *[Co ::Ca] was a valid opposition in general, what could account for a lack of suchan opposition in vocalic syllables? Why should there be only *[a, wo], butno corresponding *[o, wa]? The seeming problem evaporates if/°o, wo/ arenot seen as one half of an already lost A/B pair each, but rather as formingthe A/B distinction itself, i.e. as o2 and oj respectively.

Be that as it may, a comparison of the theoretical long vowels in bothreconstructions with the readings of the actual renderings yields the follow-ing:

CO!

Co2

Co(3)

°0

wo

Mori Miyake

*[Co:]*[Ca:]*[Co:]Ts'i

*[Co:l

Mo-ri

Miyake

*[CO] + *[3]

*[Cs] + *[a]*[Co] + *[a]not attested*[CO] + *[3]

?

^7

?Table VII: Theoretical long vowels in -o versus actual renderings

As both Mori and Miyake reconstruct -o2 in the same as the syllable /°o/as a whole, spellings like H^ ~ If ~ Iff Iflfr ~ PHtU^ for a place namecalled So2o do not pose any problems. Reading them straightforward as/so2/ plus /°o/, that is *[ss] (*[1S9] for Mori) plus *[9], gives *[(t)ss9], a goodmatch for the intended *[(t)sa:].

Insurmountable problems appear, however, upon a closer look at caseswith -QI (and -0^). There are several place names called Tojo, variouslyrendered as M^ ~ tl^, iW or 4-;&, as well as one Noio %&tffc. The re-constructions quoted above cannot but read these as *[tos] and *[nos] re-spectively, albeit the expected long vowels are rather *[to:] and *[no:].What is more, this time it appears even less convincing than before to ex-plain these cases away by an in itself problematic gap in the syllable inven-tory and thus as makeshift solutions. Mori and Miyake both reconstruct/wo/ as *[wo] and if long syllables like *[to:] and *[no:] were to be written,would it not be more natural to render these as *[towo] and *[nowo] instead?This way an unnecessary and unmotivated change in vowel quality (*[o9])could easily be avoided, which is no doubt more salient than a superfluous*[w] in between rounded back vowels. Admittedly, neither *[Coa] nor

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*[Cowo] is close enough to *[Co:] to consider them perfect renderings,60

but this is exactly why at least some variation between the two optionsshould be observable. Yet no renderings along the lines of *[Cowo] seem toexist.

Let us put it another way: Even if declaring something a makeshift solu-tion might be valid for cases in -/, the same strategy loses much of its forcehere. Reconstructions of OJ positing different main vowels for -0/ and -o2

need not only account for the before-mentioned gap, but also why only al-leged makeshift renderings of the type *[Coa] are to be observed, whereas*[Cowo] as another and certainly not worse option does not occur.

Again, reconstructions assuming the same main vowel in both -0/ and -02, e.g. by positing *[wo] versus *[o] (as in Lange 1973, Unger 1975 etc.),can readily explain why vowel length is indicated by exactly the samemeans in both cases and likewise also why /wo/ is not used to indicate long-o,.

3.3. Monosyllables in -eFinally, albeit very marginal in numbers, the known cases in -e raise seriousdoubts as to the validity of some of the proposed reconstructions of OJ vo-calism as a whole. The relevant reconstructions for this section are com-piled in Table VIII below.

MoriMiyake

-ei

*[e]

-e2

*[3fil

*[9J]

-20)

61

Pel

£2

-02

*[3]

Pol

°2

Table VIII: Phonetic reconstructions of syllables in -e

Both not only reconstruct -e2 as a falling diphthong, they also agree inpositing *[s] as its main vowel, i.e. the same vowel that also appears in theirassumed sound value for -o2 and /°o/. The following overview over actualattestations will serve as an effective means to evaluate this constellation.

"°Note however that the most common MC means to render -01 and -o2, i.e. Mori's andMiyake's *[o] and *[s], are exactly the same as those used for the full syllables /wo/ and /°o/(their *[wo] and *[a]) respectively: Mu HL -u for the former, Yu -jo for the latter. This, too,stresses the relative proximity of/Coiwo/ *[Cowo] to /Coi/ *[Co:] as compared to /Coi°o/*[C09].

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CCl

Ce2

Ce(3)

°eye

Mori Miyake*[Ce:]

*[C9:e] *[Ca:j]*[Ce:]

*[a:g] *[aJ]*[je:]

Mori Miyakenot attestednot attested

*[Ce] +*[9e]*[ag] + *[9g]

*[Ce] + *[9j]*[3J] + *[3J1

not attested

?

!

Table IX: Theoretical long vowels in -e versus actual renderings

Only one case is known for -e^ namely the place name Tee and itsspelling IrUt /te°e/. If Mori's and Miyake's reconstructions are correct, thelong form would be *[te:], whereas the closest match one could come upwith in phonograms would have to resort to *[teae] (Mori) or *[te9J](Miyake), which equal /te°e/. The reason for this is yet another time that *[e]cannot form a syllable of its own for unspecified reasons while *[ae] ~ *[9J]can.

Such makeshift solutions cannot be argued to be necessary when itcomes to long syllables of the type /Ce2/ or /°e/. As noted above, -e2 is re-constructed as having a vowel identical to /°o/ as its nucleus. Thus writinglong syllables like *[>:e] ~ *[s:j] should be a simple task, as *[99e] ~ *[99J]could be rendered by /°o/ *[s] plus /°e/ *[se] ~ *[9J] with ease. This doesnot appear to have occurred however. Instead the few attestations that mightbe adduced, i.e. i£<5l^l(;e?;i^$3;£;i!£)61 /°e°e (siyagoisiya)/ '(expressionof detestation or hostility)' (K #9) and Ee ^fc#i, a place name (on which seeAppendix II), disregard the alleged perfect fit *[99e] ~ *[99J] and write/°e°e/ *|>g9g] ~ *[>J9J] instead.

In order to maintain the view that -o2 and /°o/ were *[s] while -e2 and/°e/ were falling diphthongs with *[a] as their main vowel, cogent explana-tions for cases like the above are due. As long as this is the case neither Mo-ri's nor Miyake's reconstructions of -o2 and /°o/ as well as -e2 and /°e/ ap-pears tenable, at least not both sets at the same time.

4. Geographical distributionAnother field besides phonetic reconstruction for which the digraphic tran-scriptions under consideration here provide valuable evidence is that of dia-lectology, synchronic for the OJ stage as well as diachronic. A well knownfeature of certain dialect groups, notably of the Kansai area, which roughly

61Note the gloss "^51", which is also found in WN^IOfe^ite^) /°a°a (siyago,siya)/,(laugh scornfully at sb., mock sb.)' in the same song. Its function undoubtedly was to avoiddisyllabic readings with two separately pronounced vowels such as *[aa] and to facilitate mon-osyllabic ones like *[a:] instead.

132

coincides with the area major parts of the extant OJ corpus originate, butalso on Shikoku and in parts of Kyushu, is the requirement of words to be atleast two moras long. Light syllables such as [(C)V] cannot constitutewords in isolation, while [(C)V:], [(C)VC] as well as polysyllabic forms can.Where the modern standard language has /ki/ 'tree, wood' versus /kl/ 'key',for instance, such dialects treat the two as segmentally identical, i.e. as /ki/[ki:].62 Vowel length is thus non-distinctive, at least in monosyllabic words.A general rule of vowel lengthening for light (i.e. short, open) syllables caneasily account for the surface forms in these dialects.

The same, and even more so, is true of the Ryukyuan language(s) as theonly certain relative(s) of Japanese proper. A minimal word requirement oftwo moras is an almost universal feature of the standard language of Shuriand the various dialects blessed with linguistic descriptions alike.63

As argued above it is impossible to regard the entirety of cases adducedin this paper as mere orthographic makeshift solutions, created solely forthe sake of compliance with official regulations for place names. If com-bined with the fact that spellings for some items vary between mono- anddigraphic ones and hence in explicitness as to vowel length, one is temptedto hypothesize that the minimal word requirement of two moras observedtoday in numerous places also holds for OJ. As long vowels in monosyllab-ics would then be automatic and non-distinctive, the fact that the OJ corpuslacks signs of consistent marking of long vowels could easily be accountedfor.64 Concentration of such cases in place names on the other hand is un-likely to find an answer outside the context of the above-mentioned regula-tions imposing a fixed length requirement of exactly two graphs per name.

Also, on a side-note, positing prevocalic glides in OJ does not in factcontradict the data presented here, as sequences of the types [CyV] and[CwV] are usually treated on par with ones such as [CV], that is, as light

62Full mergers are often prevented by virtue of accentual differences however.63 Samples from representative dialects are found in Kamei et al. 1997: 324-7. One major differ-ence between the phenomenon in Ryukyuan and Japanese proper is that part of the former alsoallows structures other than [(C)V:J and [(C)VC] as valid bimoraic shapes. For instance, short vow-els are tolerated even in open syllables provided the initial consonant is of longer duration, cf.Shuri ecu 'person, man', kkwa 'child', ssi 'does and'.In fact lengthening is also reported for (at least some) Tokyo speakers for monomoraic nounsnot followed by any particles (Mori 2002). As the degree of lengthening is however said torange from only about 40 to 50%, real bimoraics are still of longer duration and the distinctive-ness of vowel length is kept intact.64Note also that the main bulk of OJ comes down to us in the form of poems and songs, notprose. Vowel length here might well be regulated by rhythm and melody to a considerableextent, much like the situation in countless modern languages.

133

syllables consisting of one mora only. This is true of [CyV] in modernstandard Japanese, and dialects of Japanese and Ryukyuan suggest the samefor [CwV].65 The absence of presence of prevocalic glides is thus likely tohave been irrelevant to syllable weight and hence to the need of vowellengthening in OJ.

Should this assumption be correct, the next problem that needs to beaddressed is the scope of this claim. To limit ourselves to a rough divisioninto the two major locatable varieties of OJ, namely Western OJ (WOJ)with the capital Heijokyo ^5$M as its center and Eastern OJ (EOJ) spokenin the eastern provinces, does automatic lengthening occur in both or is itrestricted to either of the two? While no definite answer can be given atpresent, the following anecdote by Kindaichi Haruhiko might serve as asource of inspiration, indicating possible means to find out exactly this:

»Generally speaking, there are very few one-syllable words in Japanese.When actually spoken, such words are very difficult to catch and makesense of. Once when I had to go to Tsu city in Mie prefecture, I had diffi-culty obtaining a ticket. At the ticket window I repeated "A ticket for Tsu"several times, but could not make myself understood until I had said, "Aticket for Tsu on the Sangu Line." A one-syllable station name like Tsuexists because people in the Kyoto-Osaka district pronounce a word of onesyllable by prolonging the sound, making it a word of two syllables, thus"Tsu-u." In a district like Kanto (the general Tokyo area), speakers of thestandard language, however, do not, and therein lies the difficulty. A one-syllable place name like Tsu would most likely not occur in an area likeKanto where the syllable is kept short.«(Kindaichi 1978:93)

What is of interest to us here is theclosing statement. If we take this correla-tion between the presence or absence ofthe phenomenon of automatic vowellengthening in monosyllabic words in thedialect(s) of a given region on the onehand and the presence or absence of mon-osyllabic place names on the other as apossible clue, the map on the right indi-cating the distribution of monosyllabic

"^Consider for instance Shuri kwaa 'surplus' (< il, MC kwaH; cf. Sino-Japanese ka < kwa).Thanks are due to Wayne P. Lawrence for pointing this one out to me.

134

place names66 in Japan (minus Hokkaido and Okinawa, for obvious reasons)as witnessed by early 10th century works such as the Engishiki MiH^ orWMS could provide us with at least a preliminary answer to the questionformulated above.

In OJ times monosyllabic place names, and by extension possibly vowellengthening in monosyllabic words, was widespread, extending from whatis now Kyushu over the Chugoku district to the central region in proximityto the capital. In contrast, hardly any cases are found in the region whereEOJ was spoken. The almost complete absence of vowel lengthening in thedomain of EOJ as well as in modern dialects of the same region is unclearand demands further studies (substratum influence might be worth consid-eration though).On the basis of the observations made we tentatively propose that: (1) Auto-matic vowel lengthening for monosyllabics is a shared feature of WOJ,some modern Japanese as well as most Ryukyuan dialects. We are thus fac-ing an instance of long-term continuity here, which may further be assumedto go back to the level of common Japonic. (2) EOJ did not exhibit thischaracteristic, or at least not anymore should the preceding assumption becorrect. The loss of automatic vowel lengthening would then have to beregarded as an innovation in EOJ, again paired with a strong tendency to-wards continuity, as modern dialects of the same region still lack this phe-nomenon.

List of abbreviationsDNK

EOJESHgFIHzFIIFKKHKM

0 [Tokyo daigaku shiryoDai-Nihon komonjohensanjo 1968-70]Eastern Old JapaneseEngishiki (927 CE) [Kuroita 1937]Higofudoki itsubun IEt£)!l±ffi3&3C [Akimoto 1958]Hizenfudoki IEfijJiL±f£ (after 713 CE) [Akimoto 1958]= [Ikebe 1966]Izumofudoki tBSJ!±ffi (733 CE) [Akimoto 1958]Kojiki ^f£ (712 CE) [Kurano/Takeda 1958]Kakyd hydshiki W&W& (772 CE)Konjaku monogatarishii ^^^-^ (late Heian)

A small number of other evidently monosyllabic place names which however lack digraphicspellings of the type discussed in this paper have been included as well. Among these are thename of the province of Tu[u] ^M and Yu[u] SH (ff^S, WMS V/25b: 1? /yu/; {Uf H —

WMS VIII/4b: S /yu/). Another place name written SH but without reading gloss (IEJj^, WMS IX/18a) might possibly be added.

135

KTIMCMJMYSNKNSNS[Kitano]OJSJSKHSKOS

SNWMS

WMS[I]WMS[K]

WOJ

ReferencesAkimoto, K.

= [Vi 2000]Middle ChineseMontoku jitsuroku (879 CE)

(late Nara)(840 CE)(720 CE)(720 CE), Kitano manuscript

Arisaka, H.

Man'yoshu TjNihon koki 0Nihon shoki 0Nihon shoki 0Old JapaneseSandai jitsuroku HftHii (901 CE)Sendai kuji hongi 5feft 10 *£#S (early Heian) [lida 1 967]Shin 'yaku Kegonkyo ongi shiki 0f IK^MIlliPli^iE (lateNara)S/*0fo/ Nihongi 1fii 0 «B (797 CE)Wamyo ruijusho fH^ Hi^t^ (930s), printed edition by NawaDoen 15$ulR (1617 CE) [Masamune 1962]Wamyo ruijusho fH^i Hf i£$J> (930s), Ise {3 manuscriptWamyo ruijusho fP^HiW (930s), Kozanji f^UJ^F manu-script [Tenri toshokan zenpon sosho washo no bu henshuiinkai 1972]Western Old Japanese

R (ed.). 1958. Fudoki H,±iB. (Nihon koten bungaku taikei, 2.) Tokyo JfUfC: Iwanami shoten tt/£.

. 1955. Joffo/ on'inko ±ft;ifiS3c. Tokyo ^M: Sanseido

Baxter, W. H. 1992. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology (Trends in Linguistics.Studies and Monographs, 64.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

lida, S. &ffl^7& (ed.). 21967. Hyochu Sendai kuji hongikyo JflM: Meibunsha Wtt±.

Ikebe, W. ftfciSSJ. 1966. fFawyo ruijusho gomei koshokyo M: Yoshikawa kobunkan pfJI|3A:£tjt.

Kamei, T. H^^eds.). 1997. Nihon retto no gengo 0daijiten serekushon B'M^^C^Alr l/^ v'a >.) Tokyo

12. To-

. To-

fp1. (Gengogaku: Sanseido H^

Kindaichi, H. [^ffl— ^]. 1978. The Japanese Language. Rutland, Tokyo: Turtle.Kuroita, K. (ed.). 1937. Kotaishiki, Koninshiki, Engishiki £^5£ ^At^^S1^. (Shintei zoho Kokushi taikei fffT^lill^^:^, 26.) Tokyo ^M:Kokushi taikei kankokai

Kurano, K. £&M*\, Y. Takeda.M. (Nihon koten bungaku taikeishoten

(eds.). 1958. A^or/ro

1.) Tokyo Iwanami

Lange, R. A. 1973. The Phonology of Eigth-Century Japanese: A ReconstructionBased upon Written Records. Tokyo: Sophia University.

Mabuchi, K. H$flfa^. 1968. Jodai no kotoba _hft<7)C: ^ (3:. (Nihon bunposhinsho 0^zSO&^flr.) Tokyo MR: Shibundo SJC'iL

Masamune, A. lE^ni^^: (ed.). 1962. Wamyo ruijusho fH^S^I^. 2 vols. TokyoM^: Kazama shobo MP^H^.

Miyake, M. 1999. The Phonology of Eighth-Century Japanese Revisited: AnotherReconstruction Based Upon Written Records. Doctoral Dissertation, University ofHawai'i. 2003. Old Japanese. A Phonetic Reconstruction. London, NewYork: RoutledgeCurzon.

Mori, H. ^jM^ilt. 1991. Kodai no on'in to Nihon shoki no seiritsu ^i\(D^^ h 0^HrlB^^C-iL Tokyo MR: Taishukan shoten ^ft^ttHrJt^.

Mori, Y. 2002. Lengthening of Japanese Monomoraic Nouns. Journal of Phonetics30:689-708.

Motoori, N. ^SlIMI:. 1800. Chimeijion ten'yo-rei ttfe^i^^fefflf^iJ. Reproducedin Kanji san'on-ko. Chimeijion ten'yo-rei fH^-zi^^" • i&^^-W^sfflf^J. (Ben-seisha bunko i^|ilSCJ$, 67.) Tokyo MR: Benseisha ^IfiScli, 1979.

Ono, T. ^cS^iiS. 1962. Man'yogana no kenkyu: Kodai Nihongo no hydki no kenkyu"Jfft 0^|§-60^|S(7)5Jf^g. Tokyo MR: Meiji shoin ^f~B^

1977. Zoku Man'yogana no kenkyu ^Ji^i^^ (Dffi^fc. Tokyo MR:Takayama honten

Osterkamp, S. 2007. Official Regulations and Unwritten Rules for Place NameSpellings in 8th to 10th-century Japan — A Conspectus of their Consequences andSide-effects —. Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 31: 213-244

Rickmeyer, J. 1992 [2004]. Japanische Sprachgeschichte —Tabellarischer Abrifider Grammatik—. Unpublished manuscript, University of Bochum.

Tenri toshokan zenpon sosho washo no bu henshu iinkai ^SIDIJtttl^lllrfPlI^M^ (ed.). 1972. Wamyo ruijusho. Sanpo ruijishu fa^H3^ • H. (Tenri toshokan zenpon sosho, Washo no bu 3^Sf§3-irtltll^il:1lr fa

, 2.) Tenri ^M: Tenri daigaku shuppanbu ^3^¥t±S)i&ttf.Tokyo daigaku shiryo hensanjo M^:^^^4li^0f (ed.). 1968-1970. Dai-Nihon

komonjo hennen monjo ^0^1^F:£1l iil^^Cilr. 25 vols. Tokyo ^M: Tokyodaigaku shuppankai M^C^tUliS^.

Unger, J. M. 1975. Studies in Early Japanese Morphophonemics. Ph.D. dissertation,Yale University. Reprint Bloomington:IULC, 1977.

Wenck, G. 1954. Die Phonetik der Manyogana. (Japanische Phonetik, 2.) Wies-baden: Harrassowitz. 1959. Erscheinungen und Probleme des japanischenLautwandels. (Japanische Phonetik, 4.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

136 137

Vi, K. il:¥ (ed.). 2000. A^o/ye Taycangkyeng icheycacenSeoul: Kolye Taycangkyeng yenkwuso fSJM^v

Appendix I

Onomastic Cases

SP

(SP)

attestationsKi2i iSff- (WMS V/lOb: H$ /ki/, VI/2a; WMS[K]VI/2b) ~ Ki2 IS(^) (NS[Kitano]) [I: 127]Ki2i(MJ I

(WMS VI/2a; WMS[K] VI/2b),| 3/III/^E) [I: 128]

Woo P^U^ (WMS VI/8a: /wo/) (WMS[K]VI/7b: ditto) ~ <X/l lOa),

(ES: 71 1), Wo(K II: 150), Wo

) etc. [I: 185,683]

(^) (WMS[K](WMS[K] X/l lOa)

: 202), (IBIII

Po(1)o ffl^[!] (WMS V/13a: H /fo/, VI/15b) ~ Sf W

(WMS[K] VI/40a) ~ (^MH)ff^-67(tl5) (DNKXXV/79 [^¥^S 5]) ~ *f^(t|5) (ES: 224, 71 1) ~^^ (ES: 56), Po(1) (tP) (mokkan, Heijokyu, [715-])~ (HJH)^(fF) (mokkan, Ishigami, [680s-701]), Po(1)

(HJH^)^(SU) (K II: 176), Po(1) M(^jt) (SKH X:225) [I: 238]Wii MfVI/15a:

(WMS VI/17a:/wi°i/), t

i/, WMS[K]: 225) [I: 244]

Tuu f|$^ (WMS VII/3a; WMS[K] VII/32a) [I: 341]

Nojo ^ [iR] (WMS[K] X/l 13a) [I: 685]Tuu H5^ (WMS VII/23b) ~ U^ (WMS [K] VII/49a:

/tuu/), Tu (ttl£) (SDJ) [I: 444]

Tii (ES: 292)

67WMS[K] and DNK employ a variant of f£ (MC ?joH), cf. KTI: 1198, #6899. The actualform is close to variant #3 in KTI, which just as variant #2 (^-) is often confused with the morecommon and similar graph IS (MC bjonff), as in the WMS, and which at times was even re-placed by the same graph not only in writing but also in reading (see Wenck 1954: 28-9. §474for a brief treatment of the two best-known examples).68Again the actual form is close to variant #3 in KTI: 1198, #6899.

138

(SJ XV [IX/3^]) ~ li'ffW) (SJ XX

[ZG13/XI/i^P]), Ti(no) ^P7!?(l±)70 (IF: 206)Yuu (IF: 1 14), (ffi (SJ XX

Kuu (IF: 142, 150 [two distinct islands])Ko2o (IF: 150)

To,o O (IF: 164)TuufP^(JI|)(IF: 174)

(WMS: 294) ~

Pi2i £W) (IF: 236, 238 [2x], 240 [2x])

$fl) (IF: 192) ~ (ft) (IF: 236) ~ l¥[!VIII/9a; WMS[K] VIII/58a),(ffiM[...])^ffW) (SJ xv(SJ XX [ZGB/XI/^]), Wt"l) (IF: 192, 220, 222,244, 250) ~ ^fft^M) (IF: 180, 232, 244) ~ ^lfF(M)(IF: 230, 232 [4x], 246), Pi2i (^&nXM&(~%%)^S) 'Kitimaro of Pi2i' (IF: 240), Pi2 H(|±) (IF: 240[2x]), H (IF: 236, 238; original spelling up to 726; theplace was named after 1M 0 1% [238]), Pi2 IE(M)(K I: 87, II: 198, 210), Pi2 f&(£JI|) (NS 1/8, 8[varl],8[var3]) (NS ) [I: 498]

SB®To,o fW (WMS VIII/9b)VIII/58b), cf. 9Tuto!

f|5^ (WMS[K](ES: 295) [I: 501]

(SP)

Tuu n^F (WMS V/23a: /tu/, VIII/15b; WMS[K]VIII/64a; ES: 564), f&^(£&) (mokkan, Heijokyo,737), Tui^) (KM) [I: 535]

TilTee I£H (WMSVIII/64b: EL /te/), TeVIII/64b) [I: 540]

/se/;72 WMS[K](WMS[K]

fi (MC hwijH) is an obvious error for ffi (MC y//') as is also evident from the other at-testation of this shrine's name in the SJ. Scribal errors in both directions can be observed for fi- fp\. for instance correct Sawi fefi, as in the WMS[K], with the WMS's erroneous fef^"(Ikebe 1966: 311).™The attributive particle =no is reanalysed as being part of the shrine's name Tii. For a paral-lel case see the WMS's gloss '/IT!; /yeno/ for Ee %K$±. discussed in Appendix II.

^ (MC kaep) in both WMS and WMS[K] is an error for f^ (MC ?jij\s was already point-ed out by Motoori (1800: 2la). The latter has <^/£> for .'^The glosses of WMS and WMS[K] are contradictory, the latter notes however that in theprovince itself not the official spelling USt but rather the monographic spelling /te/ is

139

m&

%^

m®im

&«r

%m^ffl

&&

&M-*

W&

%M

X'Jffl

¥&

(B)

mm (SP)

To!0 4-E (WMS VIII/17b; WMS[K] VIII/65b) [I:546]Tim W^ (WMS VIII/17b; WMS[K] VIII/65b) [I:546]Tuu f|5^ (WMS VIII/19a; WMS[K] VIII/67a), f|[IK] (WMS[K] X/104b) [I: 552, 686]No,o feVfc [IR] (ES: 715) ~ M<P+^> (WMS[K]X/104b), ^ [!] it (WMS VIII/19b), ^ [!] j& 73

(WMS[K] VIII/67b) [I: 555, 686]Yuu S^ (WMS VIII/20b; WMS[K] VIII/68b) [I:560]Yuu S^ [1R] (ES: 715) ~ ffl[!]^74 [IR] (WMS[K]X/105a)[I:686]Ki2i faffi (WMS V/9b, WMS IX/72a etc.) ~ iSf^(S)(MYS XIII/3302), |EfF(ll3t) (SKH X: 247), Ki2 (S) (MYS IV/544, VII/1194, 1195, 1220, IX/1678,XI/2795, XIII/3318), Ki2^(®) (MYS IX/1679) etc.Ki2i rffiff- (WMS IX/6b; WMS[K] IX/74b) [I: 598]Piii fflitf^ (WMS IX/lOb: Jt /fi/, WMS[K] IX/77b:ditto), cf. Pi2 IE(^) (DNK I / I l l [^;S 2] etc.) [I:616]75

Pi2 AO^t) (SKH X: 251), ik(M) (HzF: 378 [2x],380 [3x]) [= IE in IE fij and jJEf£ after the split; cf. Pi2ibelow]Ki2i £H76 (WMS IX/16a; WMS[K] IX/82b) ~ Sl£(ffl) (ES: 316; HzF: 380), Si£(S) (HzF: 380), Sl£(£UJ) (HzF: 380), S^[!]77 (ES: 566) etc. [I: 647]

employed. Thus the actual name must have been Tee, not *See; the reading given in WMSappears to be conjectural.^Ikebe (1966: 686) proposes an original ii for both ;f;$t and and we shall followhim for the time being. At least graphical resemblance of K (tffc) and H5 (^:) is given In cur-sive writing, and inversions of graphs are also attested elsewhere in WMS. See for instance |)l|3t instead of correct Hill for Yamakuni (WMS VIII/19a: -tlli^i^Sf /yamakuni/) or the read-ing gloss £O^IR /tiriku/ for T|l, which rather implies £Q^M<IJ /tikuri/ (WMS[K] IX/82b).

B (MC c/e«) is an obvious error for S (MC yuw).75Provided that Ikebe's (1966: 616) identification of IE with BJtff" is correct - in fact Pi2 IEcould also refer to any of the other places called thus located in what is today Kyushu - thediscrepancy between Pi2 and Piii begs for an explanation. As no attestations prior to WMS areknown of, we propose to consider BJtfp" as a late rendering of the name, i.e. one based on EMJFii rather than OJ Piii or Pi2i.

140

Ki2i (WMS IX/16b: ^ ff- /kIX/82b) ~ S^[!] (ES: 716), Sl£ [X/106b) ~ £^[!](1R) (ES: 716), Ki2i fVII/1472 [££]) etc. [I: 647, 687]

i/; WMS[K]] (WMS[K]

(MYS

AftPi2i lEff- (WMS IX/19b; WMS[K] IX/85a), Pi2 flE(lT(DNK 11/18, 20 [^¥ 8]), Pi2 >k(e) (HzF: 380, HgFI:521) [I: 662]To,o ffiflfc (WMS IX/20a) ~IX/86a) ~ li^ (WMS[I]) [I: 666]

(WMS[K]

(SB)

So2o OH&I^ (WMS IX/21a: ^ /so°o/)(ES: 3 1 7) ~ If < P +n> (WMS[K] IX/86b) ~ If (DNK; ES; SN; WMS[I]) ~ So2o ^(tP) (ES; NK II[MM 12/ii/S^], xxni [j&t: 5/ii/^M]), So2 (^i) (DNK; SN), So2 (75^) (SN XXXIX [MH7A^II/£M]), "So2 (NS VII [f:tT 12/XII/TM]

etc.) etc. [I: 669-70]78

(SB)

Ee [^C?]^i (WMS V/28b:

[!]79 (WMS[K] IX/88a), EM]), E nJ^(^UJ^) (NS II

/yeno/, IX/22b)

?) (SN I [^C9], glossed

Ee [^C?]IX/88a)

(WMS IX/23a) \] (WMS[K]

unknownKi2i (mokkan, Fujiwarakyu, 695)

(mokkan, Heijokyo, [-715])

Non-onomastic Cases

/K P"

°a°a

* ( *

(siyago!£f ^ #1

siya)/? ) /°a°a

,( laugh scornfully at sb., mock sb )' (K#9)

,ditto'(NS#10)

' ° For this and the next entry WMS uses a common variant form of , replacing the first twostrokes t by _t.77 eh.'' Here and elsewhere intended m- (MC yijH) is confused with the more common graph Ip(MC sijff).'°Ikebe (1966: 670) further mentions a spelling If H implying /so2wo/ rather than /so2°o/. Thismust not be taken at face-value, however, as it is dated Jiryaku '/cJlf 5, i.e. 1069, and thuspostdates the merger of/°o/ and /wo/.' The first character of [£fc?]#± in WMS is unclear. H (MC ywengX) can be ruled out for sure,the most likely candidate would be (MC ?oj)\e Appendix II for details. #4 (MC sjengH)in WMS[K] is a scribal error for the less common graph &! (MC ?ei).

141

(siyawo)/&&Hr3\(^m^fc)/°e°e (siyagoisiya)/#P^ /ka°a/

, (expression of detestation or hostility)' (K#9);cf. f!/°e/inNS#126gloss for ka ij&feft , mosquito' (SKOS [Ono1977: 902])

Appendix II - OnThe name of today's town of Ei H^i^T in Kagoshima Prefecture HJ/^lu^c,Ibusuki County S'ftf 1$ constitutes an especially intriguing case. In order toadduce it as evidence in favor of or against certain phonetic reconstructionsof OJ it is first of all necessary to establish a cogent interpretation of theoften contradicting pieces of evidence to be gathered from early sources.

Motoori (1800: 21a [187]) already pointed out that the place rendered as"H£i" (actually rather ^C^, see below) in the WMS is also found in theform <fc(f¥) in SN as well as ^T^(^lJLll^) in NS. Furthermore he alsocommented on the reading gloss found in WMS V/28b, lL~Pj /yeno/, assum-ing that the unexpected /no/ is actually the attributive (or "genitive") particle=no that is inserted between the place name itself and the administrationalunit koori 'district' (or rather kofori for the time of the WMS's compilation)when saying them as a set.

As far as the latter comment is concerned, we shall follow Arisaka(1955: 444) and other scholars in adopting Motoori's interpretation of thesyllable /no/ in the above-mentioned gloss. In fact there are analogous ex-amples to be observed that further strengthen Motoori's argument: For acertain shrine in Izumo the name of which is recorded as ^f^"(W[|i]) /ti°i/in early Heian sources, IF gives the spelling ^PTX^i) /tino/ (see Appendix Ifor details). The only way to make sense of this and the analogous case £L7b /yeno/ is to assume sporadic reanalysis of a following attributive particle=no as being part of the preceding name, something which only seems tohave occurred with monosyllabic names, probably due to their unusualshortness as compared to the average length of (simplex) place names ofabout three syllables.

Claiming identity of the place referred to by H£i as well as <fc and 1iH is, however, not as unproblematic as Motoori suggests. Now he is not yetaware of the earlier distinction between /°e/ and /ye/, which is usually heldto be valid up to the mid-10th century, and therefore he cannot but fail tonotice the discrepancy between H, read ywengX in MC and thus a candi-date for a phonogram for /ye/ at best, on the one hand and the renderings

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found in NS and SN on the other.80 <fc was the standard way to write OJ/°e/ and owing to a reading gloss in NS (II/l: i^ /°e/) there can be no doubtthat ^Ti£ is to be read /°e/ as well.

One possible solution would be to claim that H£i is of late origin, i.e.that it post-dates the merger of /°e/ and /ye/. In fact there seems to be noattestation of this particular spelling - or a similar one, for that matter - inany of the better known literary works up to about the year 900. However,in 1988 excavation of a mokkan reading "iHfl^!Pi#i=" from the Dazaifu ^^?J^F site has been reported (Mokkan kenkyu 8: 100), thereby demonstratingthat the place name spelling under consideration goes back to OJ times - atleast in an approximate form.

As the issue at hand thus appears to be no chronological one, a closergraphemic inspection of the relevant attestations seems in order. Neither the1988 report nor the adaptation thereof in Nabunken's database81 contains anactual image of the mokkan, thus rendering it impossible to ascertain howexactly the name was written there. As transcripts of newly excavated mok-kan are not necessarily truthful to the originals as far as actual characterforms are concerned, but rather often aim at "normalization" of variantgraphs used for ease of processing and recognition on part of the reader, "H#iT' here cannot be taken at face value without visual proof. Identification ofplace names in newly surfaced texts is not seldom based on WMS or otherlate sources, therefore it is not unlikely that consultation of the originalwould confirm our assumption that in fact a cursively written ^fc£i is to befound, which however got misinterpreted as standing for the later spellingmm.

Decisive evidence must then primarily bedrawn from the WMS[K], the earliest knownmanuscript of the WMS in twenty volumes.There (IX/88a) we find the name written asshown on the right. M: can readily be identifiedas a scribal error for £t; more significant howev-er is the choice of the first graph: Instead of H(MC ywengX) we now find (MC ?oj). While^fc is otherwise unattested as a phonogram in OJ, (near-)homophones of ^Care frequently used to render OJ /°e/, such as il (?ojH), £b or i^ (both ?oj).Not a few spellings of proper names tend to use phonograms rarely attestedor even entirely unattested in the remainder of the OJ corpus, therefore it

onStrangely enough Arisaka (1955: 443—4) never mentions these spellings with unambiguous /°e/

despite being aware of the /°e :: ye/ opposition and being familiar with Motoori's work.8 http://www.nabunken.go.jp/open/mokkan/mokkan 1 .html

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[1]

seems safe to follow Ono (1962: 481) in regarding ^C#i£ as the originalspelling of this name. Needless to say, this would be read /°e°e/ and thus bein accordance with the variant spellings ^c /°e/ and ^Ifl /°e/ - the other-wise necessary assumption that confusion of /°e/ and /ye/ occurred in 8th

century names and their spellings intended for official usage can thus safelybe abandoned.

In fact even the early Edo period print of theWMS hints into the same direction under closerscrutiny, as despite common belief it does notactually contain the spelling |S£i. The nameappears three times (V/28b, IX/22b, 23a) and isconsistently written as shown in [1] on the right.While one might be tempted to regard [1] as avariant spelling for Hl£i,82 this is rendered im-possible as soon as not only the isolated spellings of a single name are con-sidered but the use of character forms and variants in the 1617 printed edi-tion in its entirety. Our preliminary inspection yields the following results:Whenever intended Hi occurs in the main text it is either written as [2](WMS V/28a etc.) or [3] (WMS V/28b etc.), but never like the first graph in[1]. For the place name on the contrary, [2] and [3] are never employed, theactual spelling is always identical with [1]. The alleged IK in the WMS'srendering of this place name thus turns out to be rather unlikely. Assumingdifferent variants, one only occurring in this name and two other ones eve-rywhere else, appears little convincing. Within the context of the WMS as awhole it is thus not tenable to interpret [1] as Hf£l without prior justifica-tion.

Yet it is impossible to deny the existence of the spelling H#iE. Thequestion then is when it came into use. As an inspection of all originals con-taining spellings of this place name from early Heian times onwards liesbeyond the scope of the present paper, we will confine ourselves to the fol-lowing prediction: H£i implying the reading Yee likely dates from afterthe merger of /°e, ye/ into the latter, and the same applies to the WMS's(V/28b) reading II.Tj /yeno/.83

&KThe first graph in [1] is indeed identical to a variant form of H that is also attested else-where, see KTI: 721, #4206, variant #2.OT

OJIn other words, as with many reading glosses found in the various editions of the WMS, be itin print or manuscript form, this gloss is highly unlikely to date from the 930s when the WMSwas first compiled. Also note that there are numerous other cases in the WMS with evidentconfusion of/°e/ with /ye/.

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Since the first graph in [1] cannot simply be equated with H, as statedabove, it is probably best viewed as a misinterpretation (or in a sense, as ahypercorrection) of an original or a variant form thereof, possibly theone seen in WMS[K] above. This assumption is supported by the fact that1C shows great graphical similarity to 'K in cursive writing, as it can also beseen from the simplified character ~$\r H. Note that the assumed misin-terpretation works in the usual fashion, i.e. a less common graph ($C) ismisread as a more common one (H), and would not be without analogouscases either.84

In conclusion it might be added that MC ywengX(%i.) would be a ratherunusual - and otherwise practically unattested85 - choice to render OJ /ye/.It is well known that characters to render OJ /ye/ were not exactly easy tocome up with, which is why phonograms based on MC readings containingeither an unwanted labial medial (-w-, as in hekou P rhymes) or a super-fluous nasal coda were often employed, such as iX, MC ywejff, in the for-mer case or Mi, MC yen(H), in the latter. Cases in which both drawbacks arereadily combined as in MC ywengX are next to non-existent however. Onthe other hand, MC 'oj (^C) is a common initial-final combination to renderOJ /°e/, as it has already been noted above.

°^See the reference to Wenck 1954 in footnote 67 above and the cases adduced there, in whichfft /°o/ was misinterpreted as IS, even resulting in the misreading /°ipi (> °ifi)/.'"The only known case of H /ye/ is found in SKOS, however only through emendation of "avariant form of fj" in the original (Ono 1962: 480-1).

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