The origin of the falling tone in the Kyoto dialect of Japanese

JLR THE ORIGIN OF THE KYOTO-OSAKA FALLING TONE ___________________________________________________ The communication deals with the falling tone of the Japanese dialects of the Kyôtô-Ôsaka type. Some lexical items result from syllabic fusions that are... More

JLR THE ORIGIN OF THE KYOTO-OSAKA FALLING TONE ___________________________________________________ The communication deals with the falling tone of the Japanese dialects of the Kyôtô-Ôsaka type. Some lexical items result from syllabic fusions that are documented during the historical period of Japanese, such as õ big (< OJ oFo). Comparative external data from Uralo-Altaic languages (Uralic, Tungusic, Mongolian and Turcic) show that most items result from syllabic fusions that have occurred in the preliterary stage of proto-Japanese. The proto-phonemes involved in this process are mainly *l, *γ and *ŋ, and less frequently *y and *w. ___________________________________________________ THE DIALECTS OF JAPANESE The Japanese language is well-known for having several dialects and the discrepancy of their prosodic systems is one prominent feature. The main distinction in Japanese accents is between the Tôkyô type (東京式), the Kyôtô-Ôsaka type (京阪式) and the Kyûshû type (九州式). This distin Less