Historical Study on Japanese Phonology and Writing System: Evidence from a Survey on Scores of Buddhist Chants

Research Project

Project/Area Number	15K02568
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Japanese linguistics
Research Institution	Shimane University
Principal Investigator	ASADA Kentaro 島根大学, 学術研究院人文社会科学系, 教授 (50346045)
Project Period (FY)	2015-10-21 – 2019-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2018)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000) Fiscal Year 2017: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000) Fiscal Year 2016: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000) Fiscal Year 2015: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Keywords	日本語史 / 日本語学 / 音韻史 / 声明 / 講式 / 連母音 / 長音 / 日本語音韻史 / 音価 / 音韻 / 仏教音楽
Outline of Final Research Achievements	This study focuses on scores of Buddhist Chants, particularly the notations “合” and “ワル,” in the scores of kooshiki of the Nanzan-shin school. We carefully examined how they are actually used to confirm how Japanese long vowels and hiatuses are chanted in Kooshiki, and how they are reflected in scores of Buddhist Chants. As a result, we estimated that for Kooshiki chants, the change of [ou] to [o:] began around the early modern era from the part of fushi-hakase <角>, which has a low-level tone and no intonation. Moreover,this study considers from a historical perspective the syllable phonotactics that construct Sino-Japanese morphemes. In the mid-12th century, there were 742 theoretically combinable syllables, 400 of which were actually used as Sino-Japanese.
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	従来の日本語史研究において、声明譜はアクセント資料として重要な役割を果たしてきた。一方で音韻資料、音価推定資料としては、伝承音の特殊な発音が反映しているのか、日常言語が反映しているのかを客観的に判断することが難しく、必ずしも積極的に使用されている状況であるとは言いがたい。本研究は声明譜における補助記号に注目することにより、これまで知られ得なかった過去の日本語の連母音・長音の誦唱の実態の推定を行った。