Re: Many thanks and one more question about HANJI+E

Bart Mathias wrote:

It's entirely possible, in the realm of language discussion which seems
especially susceptible to the old-wive's-tale kind of thing, that
someone has suggested "iki-wa sen" as the origin of "ikimasen," but no
one not afraid of him would take it seriously.

Well, I did say don't quote me on it, as I couldn't remember clearly what it was I'd read! I think I got it a bit wrong, and I also think I conflated two things in my mind.

Firstly, I did once read a paper about the history of Japanese verbs, claiming something to the effect that modern verbs were largely derived from noun-like root forms. As I say, if that's nonsense it's not my nonsense.

Unfortunately, at that time I didn't speak any Japanese at all, so I can't remember any of the examples given.

Then, years later, I read a book by someone who lived in a remote valley with some Japanese potters, and he said that the local dialect retained older forms of the language, which had died out in standard modern Japanese. I think I misquoted the example he gave, which was probably "Itte wa sen", not "Iki wa sen". At the time I thought, "Ah! That seems to fit with that paper I read long ago about Japanese verbs deriving from nouns."

I think it was "itte wa sen" because, jogging my brain, I remember that it chimed with the proverb, "Gou ni itte wa, gou ni shitagae" (roughly, "When you go to a village, follow the customs of the village"). I've noticed that some native Japanese speakers modernise this to "Gou ni ikeba".

So all I have to go on, in terms of data, is "itte wa" as an old form retained in a proverb and persisting in a dialect somewhere in rural Japan. It may not even be correct that this would be an example in support of the original thesis I read all those years ago (as I say, I have no recollection of what evidence was adduced in that paper).

To me, though, the use of the topic marker "wa" is associated with nouns. My understanding is that in modern Japanese you generally need "no wa" to topicalise a verb phrase. I'm not sure about constructions like "Mou shiranai wa", but they seem to be used more by children, and are not part of the formal language and, anyway, the "wa" seems to topicalise, not so much the verb, as the entire sentence (is that right?).

So I'm seeing "wa" as a marker used with nouns, and therefore I'm seeing the "itte" of "itte wa" as nounlike. Am I on the wrong track here?

one would next have to suppose that "ikimasu" is from "iki-wa
su(ru)." In both cases the meaning is a mismatch with the supposed
etymology.

OK, but as I say I wasn't sure of the example I gave and on reflection I think it was probably wrong. I just tossed it in to see if it rang any bells with anyone.

The etymology of "ikimasu" is fairly obvious. Root "ik-" and
verb-linking suffix "-i(-)" forming the so-called "ren'youkei."

OK. So what was this root "ik-"? Was it verbal (the act of going) - or more like a noun (the concept of departure)? Or does it not really make sense to ask such a question?

Attached to that the slightly mysterious secondary root (I think
I may be the only one who calls jodoushi so) "-mas((e))-" which
makes verbs polite.

The mysteriousness of "-mas((e))-" lies in the fact that in the
affirmative it looks like a godan/yodan root, "-mas-u/mas-ita"
rather than "-mase-ru/mase-ta," while in the negative it shows
up as shimo-nidan, "-mase-n(u)" rather than "-mas-an(u)." There
is no identical main verb to serve as the honorable ancestor of
this form.

OK. This is getting a bit technical for me; godan/yodan and shimo-nidan are unfamiliar terms. Is there somewhere I can find out about these and related terms?

All is not lost, however. I believe it is generally supposed that
"-mas-" descends from "mawir-as(e)" = "allow me to go in attendance."
The sound change is pretty extreme, but not so bad if you're already
used to believing that "-desu" comes from "-de [gozaima]su."

Hmm. I don't quite get the grammatical layout of "mawir-as(e)", and I'm not sure about "-de [gozaima]su". It reminds me, though, of an old comedy programme I used to watch when I first came to Japan, "Shiratori Reiko de gozaimasu". The "de" there is clearly tagged onto a noun; has that generally been the case historically? If so, that would seem to imply that what precedes "desu" would be a nounlike creature. But where does that leave us in respect of plain forms ("iku", etc.)?

I'm also wondering how far back we're going here. Is it fair to say that Chinese characters tend to represent *things* (i.e., they are noun-based)? If so, what effect did the introduction of the Chinese writing system have on the native language? Did the Chinese present 行 etc. as *things* (nounlike concepts, such as "departure") or as actions (the verblike action of "going")? Or is that the wrong question to ask? And what would the Japanese language have been like before the Chinese introduced writing to Japan?

The yodan affirmative would either be the earlier shuushikei form
"ma[wira]su" fossilized, or simply the deletion of not-so-important
"-ru" from the end (not that one doesn't enounter "...masuru" from
time to time).

Again, that's rather technical for me, but it seems to boil down to saying that "ikimasu" traces back to "iki-miwarasu", and so presumably "ikimasen" would derive from "iki-miwarasen", or something like that?

Does that mean something like "departure [iki] is allowed [to me]" (the illocutionary force being "[since it's allowed] I'm going")? Or am I still on the wrong track?

If it does mean something along those lines then I'm quite excited for a completely different reason. The new reason is that, embedded in the "-masu" form, is the idea that everything one does is done because one has been allowed to do it (by one's superiors, I presume). That's quite a concept (of course, I'm aware that such a concept would probably be as surprising to the average Japanese person as it is to me, but it's nevertheless extremely interesting). Do let me know if I'm barking up quite the wrong tree!

Thank you for responding in a helpful way. I don't mind being told I'm talking nonsense, but it's not much good unless I'm given the tools to find out *why* it's nonsense. "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise" (William Blake).

John
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