From Person Affixes to Demonstratives: A Comparative Analysis of Prefix and Suffix Shifts in Ainu, Japanese, and Tungusic Languages
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| Format: | Recurso digital |
| Language: | English |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866901332773830656 |
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| author | Konno, Tetsuo |
| author_facet | Konno, Tetsuo |
| contents | <p>This paper explores the deep structural and historical connections between person affixes and demonstrative systems in Ainu, Japanese, and Tungusic languages. By analyzing the positional shifts of affixes—from prefixing in Ainu to suffixing in Japanese and Tungusic—we uncover a shared substratum of person marking rooted in spatial deixis. Special attention is given to morphemes such as <em>ku</em>, <em>ko</em>, <em>bi</em>, <em>chi</em>, and <em>na</em>, which appear across these languages with functions related to personhood, plurality, and gender. The study argues that these similarities are not coincidental, but rather remnants of an ancient East Asian linguistic system that once spanned a broad geographic and cultural continuum. Through comparative morphology and grammaticalization analysis, we propose a unified model that integrates personal pronouns, demonstratives, and honorific suffixes into a coherent typological and historical framework.</p> <p><span lang="EN-US">Author : Tetsuo Konno</span>(今野哲夫)<span lang="EN-US">https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1842-7865</span></p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_15813979 |
| institution | Zenodo |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
| record_format | zenodo |
| spellingShingle | From Person Affixes to Demonstratives: A Comparative Analysis of Prefix and Suffix Shifts in Ainu, Japanese, and Tungusic Languages Konno, Tetsuo person affix demonstratives Ainu Japanese Tungusic -chi -tachi grammaticalization prefix-suffix shift East Asian substratum <p>This paper explores the deep structural and historical connections between person affixes and demonstrative systems in Ainu, Japanese, and Tungusic languages. By analyzing the positional shifts of affixes—from prefixing in Ainu to suffixing in Japanese and Tungusic—we uncover a shared substratum of person marking rooted in spatial deixis. Special attention is given to morphemes such as <em>ku</em>, <em>ko</em>, <em>bi</em>, <em>chi</em>, and <em>na</em>, which appear across these languages with functions related to personhood, plurality, and gender. The study argues that these similarities are not coincidental, but rather remnants of an ancient East Asian linguistic system that once spanned a broad geographic and cultural continuum. Through comparative morphology and grammaticalization analysis, we propose a unified model that integrates personal pronouns, demonstratives, and honorific suffixes into a coherent typological and historical framework.</p> <p><span lang="EN-US">Author : Tetsuo Konno</span>(今野哲夫)<span lang="EN-US">https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1842-7865</span></p> |
| title | From Person Affixes to Demonstratives: A Comparative Analysis of Prefix and Suffix Shifts in Ainu, Japanese, and Tungusic Languages |
| topic | person affix demonstratives Ainu Japanese Tungusic -chi -tachi grammaticalization prefix-suffix shift East Asian substratum |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15813979 |