国立国語研究所
催し物 (2009年度～2021年度)

「日本列島と周辺諸言語の類型論的・比較歴史的研究」研究発表会 概要

プロジェクト名

日本列島と周辺諸言語の類型論的・比較歴史的研究 (略称 : 東北アジア言語地域)

リーダー名

John WHITMAN (国立国語研究所 言語対照研究系 教授)

開催期日

平成25年12月23日 (月・祝) 13:00～17:30

開催場所

国立国語研究所 3階 セミナー室 (東京都立川市緑町10-2)

"The sound of proto-Tai tones"Pittayawat Pittayaporn (タイ・チュラロンコーン大学 助教)

A reconstruction of a proto-language is an attempt to present a concrete picture of that linguistic system. With this in mind, the reconstruction of PT cannot be completed without addressing the poorly understood issue of PT tone shapes. Although it is well-established that PT had four tonal categories, conventionally labeled *A, *B, *C, and *D (Gedney 1972; Li 1977) , it is still unknown how these abstract categories were contrasted. One major problem is the lack of an adequate methodology for tonal reconstruction. Recently, some attempts to reconstruct the phonetic characteristics of proto-tone systems have been made (Brown 1965; Handel 2003; L-Thongkum 2002) but most of them are confined to a group of closely-related dialects whose tonal systems are very similar, both in terms of contrasts and realizations. In this paper, I propose a concrete reconstruction of PT tones, using a hybrid of the comparative method and internal reconstruction. I claim that PT tones were distinguished from each other by pitch as well as voice quality.

First, I first uncover patterns of splits and mergers of the four PT tonal categories within each variety. Subsequently, I apply internal reconstruction to individual varieties to discover features that they inherited from each of the proto-tones. The internal reconstruction presents characteristics of the tone categories from which the modern tones of that language developed. Lastly, I apply the comparative method to each of the tonal categories as established by the internal reconstruction. The application of the proposed methodology leads to a hypothesis that PT was a tone language that made use of both pitch and voice quality for tonal contrast. I reconstruct *A as a modal tone with a mid level contour, *B as a creaky tone with a low rising contour and a relative long vowel duration, and *C as a high falling contour ending with a glottal constriction with a relative short vowel duration. Lastly, I argues that *D patterned with *B (Gedney 1989) because its vowel was phonetically creaky due to presence of final stops. Not only is the proposed tonal system very plausible from a phonetic and areal point of view, it can also account for the range of variation among reflexes in different modern dialects in a simple way.

"The historical origin of the current initial nasal consonants [m, n, ɲ, ŋ] in Vietnamese"Trần Trí Dõi (ベトナム・ハノイ大学 教授)

Previously, when dealing with the second origin of Vietnamese nasal sounds, researchers often assumed that there were only [*ʔb, *ʔd] or [*ʔb, *ʔd, *ʔɟ] at most in proto Viet-Muong. This article posits that the current Vietnamese initial nasal sounds [m, n, ɲ, ŋ] (written as m, n, nh, ng in Quoc ngu) were derived from two Viet – Muong series: nasal series [*m, *n, *ɲ, *ŋ] and pre-glottal series [*ʔb, *ʔd, *ʔɟ, *ʔg]. Also, based on the curren Muong, the article proves that the nasalization of pre-glottalized sounds could only occur after the common Viet-Muong period, and this conclusion was not proposed in previous research in Vietnamese historial phonetics.

"Phonological Reconstruction of Ancient Vietnamese Using Chu Nom Materials" (字喃資料による上古ベトナム語音韻再構)清水 政明 (大阪大学 教授)

This study aims to reconstruct the phonological system of Ancient Vietnamese using the Sino-Vietnamese version of the Buddhist sutra Phật Thuyết Đại Báo Phụ Mẫu Ân Trọng Kinh 佛説大報父母恩重經, which conserves quite old features of Ancient Vietnamese. In previous literature concerning historical phonology using Chữ Nôm materials, only a few features, such as initial consonant clusters, have been considered. The Chữ Nôm characters examined in this study allow us to consider further topics such as spirantisation and the voicing of medial consonants — possible thanks to the existence of a number of disyllabic words contained therein. Finally, many of the phonological processes established based on comparison with various Vietic languages are confirmed by the present material. For these reasons, linguistic analysis of such texts plays an important role in filling the missing link between Proto Viet Muong and Middle Vietnamese.

「平安時代語アクセントに関する諸問題についての再検討」平子 達也 (京都大学 大学院生 / 日本学術振興会特別研究員)

平安時代京都方言 (平安時代語) のアクセントに関しては多くの研究の積み重ねがあるが，未だに意見の一致を見ない問題もいくつかある。特に平安時代語アクセントにおけるピッチの「上がり目」の位置づけについては，それを昇り核の音声的反映と考える立場がある一方，上がり目を弁別的なものと見なさず，語声調 (式) によつものとする立場もある。本発表では，平安時代語アクセントのより妥当な音韻論的記述に向けた準備として，この平安時代語アクセントの上がり目の位置づけについて，関連する二つの現象――複合名詞アクセントと動詞活用形アクセント――をやや詳しく見た。

しかし，複合名詞アクセントにおける所謂「式保存」法則の観点からは，上がり目を式 (もしくは語声調) によるものと見なすのがより妥当であることが示唆された一方，動詞活用形アクセントに関する検討からは上がり目は「語声調」によるものではないことが示唆され，結局明確な結論にいたらなかった。理論的な問題も含め，この方言に於ける上がり目をどのように位置づけるかについては，今後の課題として残されることとなった。

一般討論