Proto-Japonic Verbal Morphology: Insights from the South Ryukyuan Negative Forms of Vowel Verbs

要旨

Abstract This paper provides a comparative analysis of Old Japanese negative forms of bigrade verbs and their cognates in Sakishima/South Ryukyuan languages. South Ryukyuan cognates of bigrade verbs in their negative forms, as well as a number of other forms traditionally associated with the irrealis ( mizenkei , 未然形) base, essentially present two suffixes: one, a straightforward cognate with the analogous suffixes elsewhere in Japonic, being traceable to Proto-Sakishima *-en-, the other being traceable to Proto-Sakishima *-on-, with no clear Japonic cognates. My argument is that despite the appearances, this *-en-/*-on- alternation is not a result of a Sakishima innovation, but instead is rooted in Proto-Japonic morphology of vowel verbs. By applying the rules of vowel crasis and contraction known for Proto-Japonic and Old Japanese, I postulate the proto-language coexistence of two forms of verbal negation: one derived from the Proto-Japonic ancestor of nominalized (one of the functions of the ren’yōkei 連用形) and the other from the finite ( shūshikei 終止形) base forms. I conclude that the former was broadly distributed throughout the Proto-Japonic area, while the latter was confined to the regions that eventually bore Proto-Sakishima speakers.

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