The Syncretism of Passive and Potential Marking in Japonic Seen through Modern South Ryukyuan Languages

要旨

This chapter is devoted to an analysis of differential passive-potential verb marking in three South Ryukyuan/Sakishima topolects of the Japonic family: Kurima-Miyako, Tarama-Miyako, and Hateruma-Yaeyama. These three topolects are unique in that they maintain two sets of formally distinct passive-potential markers, which I call the -ar- type and the -aj- type. My argument is that these two types reflect a Proto-Japonic distinction, with the former traced to Proto-Japonic passive *-(ra)raj and the latter to Proto-Japonic potential and inchoative/spontaneous *-(ra)je. One of the goals of the chapter is to provide evidence in favor of such Proto-Japonic reconstructions. Another is to present this differential marking in the three Sakishima topolects from the perspective of language obscolescence, and in so doing, to emphasise the importance of studying small, isolated languages for diachronic and typological studies. Based on the synchronic evidence from the three topolects and on the comparison of the results against other Japonic topolects, especially Western and Eastern Old Japanese, the chapter reaches the following essential conclusions: Proto-Japonic differentiated between the predominantly passive *-(ra)raj and predominantly inchoative/spontaneous *-(ra)je; the two Proto-Japonic suffixes extended their domains to object property potential (Haspelmath’s 1994 “eventual”) and anticausative, which caused their partial overlap and instigated a competition; the overlap advanced and competition continued after the split of Proto-Japonic, usually resulting in a complete overtaking of the passive/potential/inchoative domain by either of the markers. This outcome is in line with cross-linguistic developments suggested, among others, by Shibatani (1985) and Haspelmath (1987). The three discussed South Ryukyuan topolects represent the few in which the original Proto-Japonic distinction has been retained with a degree of productivity and consistency.

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