Le rôle des suffixes en /+rV/ dans l'expression du lieu et de la direction en japonais et l'hypothèse de leur origine altaïque

要旨

This dissertation presents the results of a diachronic study of certain Japanese /+rV/-type noun suffixes and their hypothetical usage as petrified locative/directive" markers. These suffixes have often been presented as cognate to phonetically similar "Altaic" ones which are claimed to have a locative or directive meaning. They have thus been adduced as additional proof of the claim that Japanese is a member of the "Altaic" family, even though their history has not been well researched. The present study is aimed at filling this gap. Its goal is to ascertain whether the Japanese suffixes do have locative uses attested and whether it is therefore possible to compare them with their putative "Altaic" cognates. On the basis of the results of this study, the author feels entitled to reject the hypothesis of an "Altaic" origin of these Japanese suffixes, mainly because of the absence of any clear attestations of a locative usage in the Old Japanese corpus and the paucity of occurrence in modern dialects. Furthermore, the author shows that the examples most often cited as proof of the existence of such a "locative" meaning in Japanese are actually of comparatively recent coinage and he therefore suggests treating them as occurrences of a plural marker, instead of as a petrified "locative" one. To conclude, the author entertains the possibility that what all these suffixes exhibit is actually a case of non-areal convergence due to shared typological properties. In short, this study tries to show the importance of establishing strict methodological criteria in the area of Japanese comparative linguistics, as well as that of doing preliminary historical research on each of the languages involved prior to any comparisons between these languagess. It paves the way for similar diachronic studies of /+rV/-type suffixes in other putative "Altaic" languages, and especially in Korean, where the history of these suffixes remains little studied.

主題