A study on the concepts of the four tones classes in Japan in the Muromachi period onwards.

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K00625
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02070:Japanese linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: UENO Kazuaki 早稲田大学, 文学学術院, 教授 (10168643)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 和字正濫鈔 / 和字大観鈔 / 漢字三音考 / 契沖 / 文雄 / 本居宣長 / 伊勢貞丈 / 石原正明

Outline of Final Research Achievements

It has been argued that after the Muromachi period in Japan, the notion of the four tone classes came to be different from those of the previous periods. The present study investigates the scholarly treatments of the four tones in the Muromachi and later periods and illustrates how the concepts on tones were inherited, developed, and transformed. The results show that Japanese Buddhist chant maintained the traditional notion of tones from the Kamakura period. By contrast, within the kuge aristocratic society, a new concept of the four tones emerged, where hyosyo (level tone) was characterized as a falling tone, as observed in the tone annotations in Myomokusyo. Later in the Edo period, Norinaga Moto’ori succeeded both strands of tone theory and criticized the tone concept by Mon’no; that was based on the Chinese pronunciation in the Zhejian province at that time. These shifts of conceptualization are beyond the scope of currently dominant views on tones.

Free Research Field

日本語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまで、文献資料による日本語アクセント史研究は現代的な四声観（音調観）にもとづいて考察されることが多かった。しかし、かかる文献を著した人々には、それぞれの四声認識があったはずで、その認識にもとづいて文献が記されているのであるから、まずは彼らの拠って立つところを明らかにしたうえで、アクセント史も記述しなおされなければならない。とくに室町期以降の文献資料を、鎌倉期以前のそれと同じように扱ってはならない。このようなアクセント観の史的研究は、かつて前田富祺によってなされたことがあったが、本研究において、これをあらためて取りあげ、問いなおしたところに本研究の学術的意義がある。