Productivity and Constraint on Multi-Verb Constructions in Old Japanese

Abstract

Old Japanese is a dead language from the Asuka and Nara periods (7th - 8th century AD). Its writing system, case system and word order make it distinct from Modern Japanese in many respects. This study presents a quantitative linguistic analysis to the patterns of multiple verb combining in Old Japanese. To this end, two databases were built: multi-verb construction in the Early Nara Period written in variant Chinese (AD. 712) and purely classical Chinese (AD. 720), and multi-verb construction in the Late Nara Period written by man’yōgana (AD. 759).The findings reveal that, in the Nara period, the formation of multi-verb constructions is an issue of verb serialisingand is facilitated at a syntactic level. Grammaticalisation of unaccusative change-of-state verbs and motion verbs results in tighter integrity of multiple verbs, which, in turn, inspires the device of verb compounding.The entropy ofthe V_final unaccusative reveals that the formation via verb serialising is more productive than the formation via verb compounding.