Late Middle Japanese

Background

The end of the 12th century was a time of transition from the aristocratic society of the nobles in the Heian period to the feudalistic society of the warrior class. Accompanying this change, the political center moved with establishment of various shogunates in the east.

Various new Buddhist movements began and literacy increased due their spread.

In the middle of 16th century, Portuguese missionaries arrived in Japan. While introducing western concepts and technology, they also shared their language. Various Portuguese loanwords entered the language.

In an attempt to spread their religion, the Portuguese missionaries studied and learned Japanese. They created a number of linguistic grammars, dictionaries, and even translated some of their literature. These resources have proven extremely valuable in Late Middle Japanese studies.

Vowels

There were five vowels: /i, e, a, o, u/.

Initially, /e/ and /o/ were realized with semivowels [j] and [w], respectively.‹See TfD› This is a result of earlier mergers inherited from Early Middle Japanese. However, it is unclear and a matter of debate as to how they were realized when preceded by a consonant.

In addition, there were two types of long o: [ɔː] and [oː]. The vowel sequence /au/ contracted into [ɔː], while /ou/ and /eu/ contracted into [oː] and [joː], respectively. Several examples include:

Consonants

Late Middle Japanese had the following consonant inventory:

In addition, there are two phonemes /N/ and /Q/. "Before a pause, /N/ is a uvular [ɴ]; it assimilates to the place of articulation of a following stop, affricate, or nasal". "/Q/ becomes a phonetic copy of a following obstruent".

Labialized consonants /kw, gw/ appeared during Early Middle Japanese. During this period, labialized consonants preceding -i and -e merged with their non-labial counterparts. Specifically:

The distinction between /ka/ and /kwa/ remained.

The sibilants /s, z/ were palatalized before /i/ and /e/. They have the following distribution:

João Rodrigues notes in Arte da Lingoa de Japam that the eastern dialects are famous for realizing /se/ as [se] rather than [ɕe]. Note that /se, ze/ has become [se, ze] in Modern Japanese, while retaining [ɕi, ʑi] for /si, zi/.

/t/ and /d/ are distinguished from the sibilants in all positions. However, they undergo affrication before /i, u/:

Prenasalization

Voiced stops and fricatives were prenasalized:

João Rodrigues makes this observation in Arte da Lingoa de Japam. In addition, the Korean text "Chephay sine spells [...] b, d, z, g with the Hangul letter sequences -mp-, -nt-, -nz-, -ngk-" indicating prenasalization.

The effects of prenasalization may also be seen in the transcription of words such as muma < /uma/ "horse" and mube < /ube/ "truly".

/h/ and /p/

Although Proto-Japanese had a *[p], by Old Japanese it had become [ɸ]. Late Middle Japanese reintroduced [p], which was contrastive with [ɸ] and was thus treated as a new phoneme. During Early Modern Japanese, [ɸ] became [h] in many dialects, where it remains today. [p] is found in mimetic words such as pinpin and patto, as well as in Chinese loanwords such as sanpai and nippon.

Medial /h/ becomes [w] when followed by /a/. Before all other vowels, it becomes zero. Thus:

Glides

/w/ has the following distribution:

The prior merger between /o/ and /wo/ into [wo] during Early Middle Japanese continues into Late Middle Japanese with the addition of /e/ and /we/ merging into [je] by the 12th century.

/y/ has the following distribution:

Due to various mergers, /e/, /we/ and /ye/ are all realized as [je] and thus indistinguishable.

Syllable structure

Traditionally syllables were of (C)V structure. As such, there was no need to distinguish between syllables and morae. However, Chinese loanwords introduced a new type of sound that could end in -m, -n, or -t. This structure is (C)V(C) and is a syllable. The mora is based on the traditional (C)V structure.

During this period, syllable final -m and -n were initially distinguished; however, by the end of the Early period, both had merged into /N/.

Medial gemination

Syllable final -m, -n, -t followed by a vowel or glide underwent gemination and become consonant clusters -mm-, -nn-, and -tt-.

-m > -mm-:

-n > -nn-:

-t > -tt-:

Onbin

Onbin (音便, "euphony") are a type of sporadic sound changes. They "were not automatic or exceptionless" and their exact causes are still debated. While they also appear in earlier stages of the language, onbin is particularly prevalent throughout Late Middle Japanese in which it has a great effect on verbal and adjectival morphology.

Verbs:

In the kuh- example, there are two possible outcomes. The former is particular of the western dialects while the latter particular of the eastern dialects.

Adjectives:

In both words the medial velar -k- drops out via elision.

Grammar

A number of archaic grammatical forms are shed bringing the language closer to its modern form.

One of the most prominent developments is the replacement of the conclusive form with the attributive. This has a number of effects:

Verbs

Late Middle Japanese inherits all nine verbal conjugations from Early Middle Japanese:

However, throughout the period bigrade verbs gradually change into monogrades. This process comes to a completion during Early Modern Japanese. This is in part a result of the merging of the conclusive and attributive forms.

Adjectives

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

Regular adjectives

The regular adjective was traditionally sub-classified into two types: those whose adverbial form ends in -ku and those whose ends in –siku:

There were three notable changes that eventually collapse this two-way distinction into one:

While the grammatical distinction between the two classes has disappeared, the historical distinction is used in explanations of certain present forms of -shii adjectives, notably the euphonic changes (音便) that occur in polite form of adjectives (meaning when followed by ござる gozaru 'to be' or 存じる zonjiru 'to know').

Adjectival nouns

There are two classes of adjectival nouns inherited from Early Middle Japanese: -nar and -tar.

The most prominent development is the reduction of attributive -naru to -na. When the conclusive and attributive merge, they both share the new -na. The tar- type becomes more archaic and is continually reduced in distribution. In Modern Japanese a few naru-adjectives and taru-adjectives remain as fossils.

Hypothetical

The realis base develops into the hypothetical. The realis base was used to describe something that has already occurred. This usage begins to fade and results in hypothetical usage that have not already occurred. Note that Modern Japanese only has a hypothetical, not a realis base anymore.

Imperative

The imperative traditionally concluded without any suffix or with -yo. During this period, the suffix -i was attached to lower bigrade, k-irregular and s-irregular verbs:

João Rodrigues notes in Arte da Lingoa de Japam that -yo could be replaced with -ro as in miyo > miro "look". Note that the eastern dialects of Old Japanese during the 8th century also contained this -ro imperative. It is also the standard imperative in Modern Japanese.

Tense and aspect

The tense and aspect systems undergo radical changes. The perfective n-, t-, and r- as well as the past tense k-/s- and ker- become obsolete. In their place tar- develops from perfective aspect into a common past tense. This eventually becomes ta, the modern past tense marker.

Particles

A new case particle de is developed from ni te.

The conjecture suffix -mu undergoes a number of phonological changes: mu > m > N > ũ. Combining with the vowel from the irrealis base to which it attaches, it would then become a long vowel sometimes with a preceding -y-.