Re: 日本語一筋 [JP]
Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:46 pm
Since starting to learn classical Japanese, I’ve been keeping a document where I put all of the classical Japanese that still appears in modern Japanese. I have a lot, but here are a few that I find interesting or even helpful to know.
む
So む is an auxiliary verb in classical Japanese that has two major meanings: speculation and intent. It’s very similar to the volitional おう/よう in Modern Japanese because, in fact, it is the origin of this form. む had two different sound changed forms.
1: ん. This one comes up in certain set phrases like, in the Star Wars quote, “フォースと共にあらんことを” (May be force be with you). This form is easily confused with the ん that is used as negation as it also follows the imperfective (あら), but in this case, it’s clear there is no negation. Here the meaning is closer to the modern “ありますように”(may there…).
Identifying whether ん is used for negation or is just む can sometimes be tricky, however. Another fixed phrase in modern Japanese that I actually thought was む is in fact the negative.
“と言わんばかりに”
“Almost as if to say…”
It turns out this ん is originally the negation. The originally meaning is something along the lines of “と言わないだけで言ったかと思うほど” (just didn’t say it, but it was to the extent that I could have thought they did). But it my mind, it was “と言いそうなほど” (to the extent that they might say)
む also comes in the form むとす, with is the auxiliary む, the particle と, and the verb す (modern: する). This closely resembles the おうとする/ようとする of modern. It even comes up in modern Japanese occasionally. While I was reading the other day, I came across 言わんとする in a modern book.
2: う. This is the fun sound change. With む turning into う, verbs started to look like this: ゆかう, よまう, いわう. For those who know classical Japanese orthography, you already see where this is going. a+u in classical Japanese has a tendency of becoming a long o. This is actually still very present in Kansai dialects of Japanese and many set phrases that were adopted by the Edo elite when the court moved from Kansai to Kantou since 江戸 Japanese at the time had no real honorifics system. Something like ありがたくございます would, through sound change, become ありがたうございます, which would be pronounced ありがとうございます. Similarly, おはやくございます would become おはやうございます , which would be pronounced おはようございます because of the a+u.
It a similar way, よまむ would become よまう, which would be pronounced よもう. And with that, 四段 verbs (which only ended in a, i, u, e) became the 五段 (which can end in a, i, u, e and o).
しむ
This is one of my favourite finds. しむ is an old causative auxiliary verb like す and さす (modern: せる and させる). All three are 下二段 (shimo-nidan), meaning that they end in u or e depending on their conjugation, and they all follow the imperfective of the preceding inflected form. So a verb like よむ can become よます or よましむ (modern: よませる), and a verb like みる would become みさす or みしむ (modern: みさせる).
As you can probably tell, しむ doesn’t really exist in modern Japanese. For whatever reason, す and さす won out, and most Japanese speakers wouldn’t be able to tell you what しむ is, unless they paid attention in their classical Japanese classes.
And yet, I recently found a word that is still stuck in the past 至らしめる (itarashimeru). This is fun, because it looks like it might be 至る+しめる, but that can’t be the case, because then it would have to be 至りしめる, because supplementary verbs like this take the continuative form (至り) and not the imperfective (至ら). The second piece of the puzzle is then why did しむ become しめる? I actually discussed this before, but it’s because 下二段 (shimo-nidan: verb can end in u or e) verbs all became 下一段 (shimo-ichidan: verb can end in only e).
To explain this better, let’s look at the verb 育つ (sodatsu: to grow). In classical Japanese, そだつ was actually two different verbs depending on whether you conjugated it like a 四段 (yodan) verb: そだた, そだち, そだつ, そだつ, そだて, そだて; or as a 下二段 (shimo-nidan) verb: そだて, そだて, そだつ, そだつる, そだつれ, そだてよ. The first (yodan) was an intransitive (no object) verb that meant to grow, and the second was a transitive verb (yes object) that meant to raise. In modern Japanese, the first verb stayed as そだつ, a yodan verb, and the second became そだてる, a shimo-ichidan verb. Notice how the つ at the and changed into て and was then followed by る? しむ -> しめる. It’s the same process.
たり、つ、り
These are some other personal favourites of mine. In classical Japanese there are four auxiliary verbs used to mark the perfective: たり, り, ぬ and つ. たり still exists in modern as the past tense た, the conditional たら(ば) and the parallel たり. Learning that たり was the perfective actually gave me a lot of insight into the meaning of たら, since たら is just a shortened version of たらば (たり in the imperfective + hypothetical particle ば), which would literally mean, “if (one) will/would have…” or “if (one) has/had…”.
The parallel meaning is interesting to me because for whatever reason, 3 of the 4 perfective auxiliary verbs (たり, つ, ぬ) ended up having this same usage. I don’t know why this is the case, but it finally explains the phrase 持ちつ持たれつ (give and take; you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours). つ is another auxiliary verb that has fallen out of use in modern Japanese, but it still appears in this phrase. When you first see it, you might wonder where the つ came from since it’s not mentioned in any Japanese textbooks. Maybe they took the conjunctive particle つつ and split it up? Nope. Just replace つ with たり and the meaning becomes a lot clearer: 持ったり持たれたり (holding and being held).
But what’s going on with り? When I first learned about it, I was pretty certain I’d never seen it in modern before, but that there must be a fixed phrase somewhere that uses it. My search has gone on for months, but I finally found a word the other day! I was playing a rhythm game when one of the lyrics popped out at me: 輝ける未来. This seems like one of your regular transitive/intransitive pairs of verbs (i.e. 輝く/輝ける) just like 育つ/育てる I mentioned above, but there’s a few things going on. First, 輝く is already intransitive and so is 輝ける. Usually, this split in modern verbs occurs because of a difference in transitivity. In classical Japanese, 輝く was actually both transitive and intransitive, but here’s what’s important: both meanings were 四段 (yodan) and not 下二段 (shimo-nidan) meaning that there’s no reason one should become 輝ける in modern. Second, as stated already, 輝く is 四段 (yodan), which means it can actually take the auxiliary verb り (only yodan and sahen [す, おはす(owasu), 愛す, etc...] can take り). Third, り also is used as the contiunative (modern: ている) and that makes perfect sense in this context. Fourth, I mean, weblio just straight up says it’s formed with り.
I’m sure there are more り’s out there, but I haven’t found any. Let me know if you see any.
There's a bunch more I went to share, but this is already a lot and I have to go!
む
So む is an auxiliary verb in classical Japanese that has two major meanings: speculation and intent. It’s very similar to the volitional おう/よう in Modern Japanese because, in fact, it is the origin of this form. む had two different sound changed forms.
1: ん. This one comes up in certain set phrases like, in the Star Wars quote, “フォースと共にあらんことを” (May be force be with you). This form is easily confused with the ん that is used as negation as it also follows the imperfective (あら), but in this case, it’s clear there is no negation. Here the meaning is closer to the modern “ありますように”(may there…).
Identifying whether ん is used for negation or is just む can sometimes be tricky, however. Another fixed phrase in modern Japanese that I actually thought was む is in fact the negative.
“と言わんばかりに”
“Almost as if to say…”
It turns out this ん is originally the negation. The originally meaning is something along the lines of “と言わないだけで言ったかと思うほど” (just didn’t say it, but it was to the extent that I could have thought they did). But it my mind, it was “と言いそうなほど” (to the extent that they might say)
む also comes in the form むとす, with is the auxiliary む, the particle と, and the verb す (modern: する). This closely resembles the おうとする/ようとする of modern. It even comes up in modern Japanese occasionally. While I was reading the other day, I came across 言わんとする in a modern book.
2: う. This is the fun sound change. With む turning into う, verbs started to look like this: ゆかう, よまう, いわう. For those who know classical Japanese orthography, you already see where this is going. a+u in classical Japanese has a tendency of becoming a long o. This is actually still very present in Kansai dialects of Japanese and many set phrases that were adopted by the Edo elite when the court moved from Kansai to Kantou since 江戸 Japanese at the time had no real honorifics system. Something like ありがたくございます would, through sound change, become ありがたうございます, which would be pronounced ありがとうございます. Similarly, おはやくございます would become おはやうございます , which would be pronounced おはようございます because of the a+u.
It a similar way, よまむ would become よまう, which would be pronounced よもう. And with that, 四段 verbs (which only ended in a, i, u, e) became the 五段 (which can end in a, i, u, e and o).
しむ
This is one of my favourite finds. しむ is an old causative auxiliary verb like す and さす (modern: せる and させる). All three are 下二段 (shimo-nidan), meaning that they end in u or e depending on their conjugation, and they all follow the imperfective of the preceding inflected form. So a verb like よむ can become よます or よましむ (modern: よませる), and a verb like みる would become みさす or みしむ (modern: みさせる).
As you can probably tell, しむ doesn’t really exist in modern Japanese. For whatever reason, す and さす won out, and most Japanese speakers wouldn’t be able to tell you what しむ is, unless they paid attention in their classical Japanese classes.
And yet, I recently found a word that is still stuck in the past 至らしめる (itarashimeru). This is fun, because it looks like it might be 至る+しめる, but that can’t be the case, because then it would have to be 至りしめる, because supplementary verbs like this take the continuative form (至り) and not the imperfective (至ら). The second piece of the puzzle is then why did しむ become しめる? I actually discussed this before, but it’s because 下二段 (shimo-nidan: verb can end in u or e) verbs all became 下一段 (shimo-ichidan: verb can end in only e).
To explain this better, let’s look at the verb 育つ (sodatsu: to grow). In classical Japanese, そだつ was actually two different verbs depending on whether you conjugated it like a 四段 (yodan) verb: そだた, そだち, そだつ, そだつ, そだて, そだて; or as a 下二段 (shimo-nidan) verb: そだて, そだて, そだつ, そだつる, そだつれ, そだてよ. The first (yodan) was an intransitive (no object) verb that meant to grow, and the second was a transitive verb (yes object) that meant to raise. In modern Japanese, the first verb stayed as そだつ, a yodan verb, and the second became そだてる, a shimo-ichidan verb. Notice how the つ at the and changed into て and was then followed by る? しむ -> しめる. It’s the same process.
たり、つ、り
These are some other personal favourites of mine. In classical Japanese there are four auxiliary verbs used to mark the perfective: たり, り, ぬ and つ. たり still exists in modern as the past tense た, the conditional たら(ば) and the parallel たり. Learning that たり was the perfective actually gave me a lot of insight into the meaning of たら, since たら is just a shortened version of たらば (たり in the imperfective + hypothetical particle ば), which would literally mean, “if (one) will/would have…” or “if (one) has/had…”.
The parallel meaning is interesting to me because for whatever reason, 3 of the 4 perfective auxiliary verbs (たり, つ, ぬ) ended up having this same usage. I don’t know why this is the case, but it finally explains the phrase 持ちつ持たれつ (give and take; you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours). つ is another auxiliary verb that has fallen out of use in modern Japanese, but it still appears in this phrase. When you first see it, you might wonder where the つ came from since it’s not mentioned in any Japanese textbooks. Maybe they took the conjunctive particle つつ and split it up? Nope. Just replace つ with たり and the meaning becomes a lot clearer: 持ったり持たれたり (holding and being held).
But what’s going on with り? When I first learned about it, I was pretty certain I’d never seen it in modern before, but that there must be a fixed phrase somewhere that uses it. My search has gone on for months, but I finally found a word the other day! I was playing a rhythm game when one of the lyrics popped out at me: 輝ける未来. This seems like one of your regular transitive/intransitive pairs of verbs (i.e. 輝く/輝ける) just like 育つ/育てる I mentioned above, but there’s a few things going on. First, 輝く is already intransitive and so is 輝ける. Usually, this split in modern verbs occurs because of a difference in transitivity. In classical Japanese, 輝く was actually both transitive and intransitive, but here’s what’s important: both meanings were 四段 (yodan) and not 下二段 (shimo-nidan) meaning that there’s no reason one should become 輝ける in modern. Second, as stated already, 輝く is 四段 (yodan), which means it can actually take the auxiliary verb り (only yodan and sahen [す, おはす(owasu), 愛す, etc...] can take り). Third, り also is used as the contiunative (modern: ている) and that makes perfect sense in this context. Fourth, I mean, weblio just straight up says it’s formed with り.
I’m sure there are more り’s out there, but I haven’t found any. Let me know if you see any.
There's a bunch more I went to share, but this is already a lot and I have to go!