open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/55127

On the Linguistic Type of Japanese : Toward the Illumination of the “Altaic-type” Languages

日本語

2014

Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University

Northern Language Studies

4

157-171

If certain two languages are similar to each other, the reason of the resemblance may be either: 1. the genetical relationship, or 2. areal influence, or 3. typological result. In this paper I examine three preceding studies on Japanese based on each viewpoint of the three reasons above. The conclusion is as follows: Japanese is a language which is formed through various language-contacts with other languages in North-East Asia. But on the other hand, Japanese has the consistent head-final word order, and has a set of features which are closely related each other. It means that Japanese is an “Altaic-type” language according to the suggestion by Kamei, Kōno and Chino (eds.) (1996).

紀要論文

Version of Record

2185-7121

AA12516968