On the etymology of the Japanese plural suffix and its possible connection to Korean

This paper presents an etymological analysis of the Japanese plural suffix tachi, Old Japanese tati. I propose that tati originates from a grammaticalization of an earlier Pre-Old Japanese phonological form *totwi, the non-bound reflex of which is the Old Japanese quasi-collective marker dwoti ‘fellow (person), everyone, together’. The reconstruction of a Pre-Old Japanese stem *totwi (Pre-Proto-Japanese /*tətəj/) with quasi-collective and plural function clarifies the possible connection of the Japanese plural suffix to the Korean plural suffix tul (Middle Korean tólh), which Whitman (1985, p. 217) proposed to be cognates but which has since been criticized on phonological and distributional grounds. I show that reconstructing the earliest form of the Japanese plural suffix as /*tətəj/ resolves each of the three phonological issues with the Japano-Koreanic comparison, creates a better morphosyntactic match between the two languages, and rules out a loanword relationship of the Japanese and Korean forms.

Altaicization and De-Altaicization of Japonic and Koreanic

This article discusses 40 grammatical features in Japonic and Koreanic in relation to their neighbouring languages in Northeast Asia. The data comprise 66 modern language varieties of 13 different linguistic affinities, and 12 historical languages (including Old and Middle Japanese and Old and Middle Korean). The results generated from a computational phylogenetic tool show a significant distance in the typological profiles of three main clades: Northeast Asian, Japonic-Koreanic, and Sinitic spheres. Typologically, the Japonic and Koreanic languages form a common grammatical type by sharing up to 26/40 features. By tracing their attestation in the historical languages we can see that the converged grammars are likely to be results of typological Altaicization and de-Altaicization. The combination of linguistic and historical evidence points to a chronology in which Japonic and Koreanic had mutually converged by Altaicization and de-Altaicization, respectively, during the 1st millennium BC and AD before eventually diverging in the 2nd millennium AD.

Old Korean and Proto-Korean *r and *l Revisited

This article argues for new internal evidence for the existence of the contrast between *r and *l in Old Korean and Proto-Korean on the basis of the Hyangchal data and Old Japanese transcriptional glosses as well as Korean loanwords in Manchu and Jurchen that were not analyzed in this way before. Namely, I will argue that combined Old Korean and Middle Korean data call for the reconstruction of two different types of liquids in the position before *i: both stay intact in Old Korean, but in Middle Korean the first type undergoes elision, whereas the second type stays intact. I then attempt to identify these two types on the basis of the internal evidence and parallel phenomena attested in the Greater Manchuria linguistic area and elsewhere.

Numerals in the Transeurasian languages

This chapter presents all relevant forms of the cardinal numerals 1‒10, 20‒90, 100, and sometimes also teens and ordinals, in all described Transeurasian languages. Besides all modern languages, where maximum accuracy in transcription is preferred, the old literary and epigraphic languages (Orkhon Runic, Old Uyghur, Karakhanid, Old Oghuz, Chaghatai; Middle Mongol, Written Mongol; Jurchen, Manchu; Middle Korean; Old and Classic Japanese), are also analyzed, including some relic languages known only fragmentarily (Kuman, Old Bulgar; Kitan; Baekje, Silla; Koguryo). On the basis of regular phonetic correspondences the related forms are projected into the partial daughter protolanguages: Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Korean. Instead of Proto-Japonic, the Old Japanese forms serve for this purpose. Applying the comparative etymological method to the final comparison between these partial protolanguages should lead to identification of inherited cognates from borrowings in agreement with phonetic rules, semantic typology, and in the perspective of possible influences of hypothetical substrata, adstrata, and superstrata.