漢語形態素を構成する音節の音素配列とその変遷

Abstract

A high percentage of Japanese language words—particularly nouns—are Sino-Japanese. The simplicity of the phonotactics that construct Sino-Japanese morphemes has been pointed out by many scholars heretofore. This paper considers from a historical perspective the syllable phonotactics that construct Sino-Japanese morphemes. In the mid-12th century, there were 742 theoretically combinable syllables, 400 of which were actually used as Sino-Japanese. The usage rate (the ratio of actually used syllables to the number of combinable ones) was 54%. In the contemporary Japanese language, there are 474 theoretically combinable syllables, 295 of which are used as Sino-Japanese. The usage rate is 62%. This means that 105 syllables have come to be no longer distinguished between due to phonotactic rule changes, including a reduction in the number of phoneme members. The Sino-Japanese phonetic system, which came into existence based on external factors, has many members and distribution holes compared to the native Japanese one. The combining of and reduction in phoneme members that occurred in the process of the contemporary Japanese language emerging has functioned to fill these distribution holes. On the other hand, while the increase in the long "o" due to the lengthening of sequential vowels has given rise to, for example, new distribution holes such as /eJ/ and /aR/; overall it has reduced the number of them while lessening the number of syllables that are distinguished between.wed as that the "ability for culture education" was a requirement of a NT and was particularly important in TT.