The historical investigation of pitch accent of the Sino-Japanese and identification of its primary sources

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The goal of this study is to elucidate the history of pitch accent of the Sino-Japanese vocabulary from Old to Modern Japanese, drawing on the evidence from various historical documents and present-day Japanese dialects. We specifically examined how the accent forms of Sino-Japanese were established through the process whereby the sounds of Chinese words, which had been introduced by learning Chinese language, were incorporated as a part of Japanese phonology. We also examined the historical changes the Sino-Japanese accent underwent under the influence of the accent of native Japanese vocabulary. The results reveal the pivotal role of the factors shaping the history of the accent of Sino-Japanese, including the establishment of the "cardinal accent forms", the avoidance of the double-peaked form(High-Low-High) and the influence of the(free or bounded) morpheme preceding or following the Sino-Japanese word.