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Tokyo University Linguistic Papers Vol. 23 : Abstracts


CHE Xiangchun, "The Accent System of the Longjing Dialect of Korean"

The accent system of Longjing dialect of Korean shows n+1 accent patterns for the n-syllable nouns. The accent pattern of the last constituent dominates the accent pattern of the whole compound noun.


EBATA Fuyuki, "Two "plural suffixes" in Sakha (Yakut)"

Sakha (Yakut) has two "plural suffixes" -LEr, that is, the suffix -LEr which represents the third person plural and the suffix -LEr which forms plural nouns. The present paper points out that corresponding to the difference of meaning between these two suffixes, we find different morphophonological behavior. Based on this observation, it is argued that these two suffixes are different morphemes.


KANG Youngsuk, "The Accent System of the Western Gyeonsangnamdo Dialects"

This paper considers the western Gyeongsangnamdo dialects, which have a unique accent system in comparison to the eastern Gyeongsangnamdo dialects. To be more precise, I take up the accent system of the Toyeong dialect in the southwest (Jukto, Yokji and Chungmu) and the accent system of young people's Jinju dialect in the midwest. I point out that both dialects show a three-way opposition for one-syllable words, a four-way opposition for two-syllable words, and an n+1-way opposition for words of n-syllables, where n is three or more. There are differences in phonetic realization between the Toyeong dialect and the Jinju dialect, which are due to the fact that the two dialects are at different stages of change in terms of accent patterns, the latter being in an advance stage compared with the former.


LEE Yeonju, "The Accent of Sino-Korean in the Taegu Dialect"

This paper shows that the accent rules on word formation are applicable to Sino-Korean monosyllables in the Taegu dialect. The possibility to predict the accent pattern of a given syllable corresponding to a Chinese character by means of the above rules on word formation is discussed.
The predicted Sino-Korean accent data from the rules is presented. Furthermore, a new notation to show correspondence sets in the accent system between Middle Korean and the Taegu dialect is presented, too.


Martine ROBBEETS, "Swadesh 100 on Japanese, Korean and Altaic"

The Altaic origin of Japanese is among the most disputed questions of language history. Given this lack of consensus, an argument that is often advanced is: "there is no basic vocabulary relating Japanese to Korean and Altaic". The present paper investigates this postulation from a methodological and date-oriented perspective. First it seeks to advance a more precise methodology involving the concept of basic vocabulary. Next it evaluates the etymological proposals made so far, relating Japanese basic vocabulary items to which an etymology relating the Japanese entry to Korean and Altaic has been presented in the past, 41 etymologies stand the selection criteria. The paper concludes that the similarities we find between Japanese, Korean and Altaic are more likely to be the result of common genetic inheritance than of borrowing.


Naonori NAGAYA, "Depictive Construction and Grammatical Relations in Tagalog"

In this paper, I describe the depictive construction in Tagalog and try to provide an explanatory answer to the question of what counts as a controller of the depictive secondary predicate and how it is picked up. The grammatical relation approach to this question makes a wrong prediction and does not work well in Tagalog. Instead I insist that a semantico-pragmatic approach provides a more adequate account: a nominal can count as a controller if it is both semantically and pragmatically salient. The controller of the depictive must excel both in the role-related property and in the reference-related property. The grammatical relations are unnecessary to capture the depictive construction.


SON Jaehyun, "Long Vowels in the Taegu Dialect of Korean"

Several researchers have pointed out that the long vowels in the Taegu dialect are in the process of decline, and some have even gone as far as to say that among the younger generation in Taegu, the long vowels do not exist anymore.
To investigate this question, I conducted a study on about one hundred people from a wide range of age-groups. The result shows that although the younger people in Taegu have a somewhat lower level of awareness about long vowels compared to the seniors, they still use a significant amount of long vowels. In particular, a study with minimal pairs revealed that even the youngest speakers are perfectly able to recognize the long vowels as well as the seniors.


Tatsuyuki MIMURA, "Aspects of Danish Syllable Structure"

This paper provides a description of the structure of the Danish syllable. Particular attention is paid to the phonotactic structure and the mechanism behind the syllabification of polysyllabic words. In relation to the phonotactic structure, the issue concerning consonant clusters violating a sonority-based principle is also discussed, and we shall provide the solution by proposing that the syllable in Danish should be composed of a syllable core and appendices, and sonority profiling is only applicable to the core. They appendix performs a phonologically relevant function in defining an overall quantity of the syllable whereby co-occurrence restriction of long vowel phonemes and coda consonant clusters can be accounted for.


UMETANI Hiroyuki, "Alga "NOT EXIST" in Mongolian"

The present paper describes the semantic and pragmatic characteristics of the predicate of non-existence alga. First, the following three main contexts where alga is found are listed:

  1. (A) The speaker recognizes the non-existence of something as a result of search or experience;
  2. The non-existence of something is expressed which the speaker assumes or expects to exist;
  3. The non-existence of something is temporary.
Then from the above, the following two common characteristics are pointed out:
  1. The possibility of the existence of something is not completely denied by the speaker.
  2. The non-existence of something is revealed through the judgment of the speaker.
Finally, another context where alga is used is investigated. When the non-existence of the speaker's intention to do something is expressed, alga can be used even if, in contrast (C) above, it is not supposed to be temporary.


UTSUMI Atsuko, "Prefix KA- in the Bantik Language"

The present paper discusses the usage and meaning of the frequently used prefix KA- in the Bantik language. The Bantik language is spoken in North Sulawesi in Indonesia. The prefix KA- attaches to an adjective-forming root as well as a verb-forming root, forming either an intransitive verb or a transitive verb. The verb with KA- can indicate either of the following meanings. First, it indicates that the action expressed by the verb has been done `uninententionally'. Second, it indicates that action can be done. The syntactic and semantic characteristics of a KA- attached verb can be expected to some extent from the characteristics of the root. In this paper, I will describe the morphemic characteristics of verbs with KA- and the correlation between the characteristics of a root and the syntactic and semantic characteristics of a verb with KA-.


UWANO Zendo, "Three Vaireties of Two-pattern Accent Systems"

Three dialects with two-pattern accent systems in Kagoshima prefecture are described with special emphasis on the tonal patterns and the internal mechanisms. They have the following characteristics in common: (1) the accentual unit is a syntagma (`buNsecu'); (2) The accent of the compounds is determined by the accent of its first element; (3) Derivations and conjugations have either the A or the B pattern throughout. On the other hand, they differ in the following ways: (4) Tonal patterns are entirely different from each other, (5) The Makurazaki dialect and the Kuroshima-Oosato dialect show alternation between non-connective forms and connective forms, which the Kagoshima dialect does not have; (6) The prosodic unit is a syllable in the Kagoshima dialect and the Makurazaki dialect. In the Kuroshima-Oosato dialect, however, it is the mora.


WATANABE, Morio, "On the ocnstruction "[object]-ga Vt-teiru" in Japanese"

This paper describes the characteristics of the construction "[object]-ga Vt-teiru", in which the object of a transitive verb normally marked by wo is marked by ga and the predicate is in teiru form. the following two points are shown: (i) The predicate Vt-teiru cannot be progressive, and (ii) when "Vt-teiru" means perfective, this construction competes with the more canonical expression "[object]-ga Vt-teiru", and thus it is apt to be adopted when it is negative and not when it is positive.


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