日语亲缘关系新论——从类型学角度探寻语言的远亲关系

A New Theory of Japanese Genealogy——An Approach to Remote Genetic Relationships from a Typological Viewpoint

日语的亲缘关系问题始终未能通过以往的历史语言学和比较语言学的方法得到解决。本文尝试使用语言地理类型学的方法来探寻超越"比较方法"能力范围的语言的"远亲关系"。通过这一研究方法得出如下结论:日语是"环日本海诸语言"中的一员,又是范围涵盖东亚沿岸地区的"太平洋沿岸语言圈"北方语群的成员。该语言圈范围越过白令海峡最远到达美洲大陆,本文将其称为范围更广的"环太平洋"语言圈。

It is totally impossible to solve the problems of genetic relationship in the case of the Japanese language through the traditional approach based on historical-comparative linguistics. This paper tries an approach from the viewpoint of geographical language typology for the purpose of tracing the'remote genetic relationship'of languages, which could not be elucidated by the 'comparative method'.The paper concludes that Japanese is one of the 'Circum-Japan-SeaLanguages' and also one of the languages of the North group in the 'Pacific Coast Linguistic Area', which extends along the coast of East Asia. This linguistic area extends further to the American continent across the Bering Strait, which may allow it to be called the'Pacific-rim Linguistic Area'.