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Display conventions

The following simple conventions are used in this display of the corpus.

Word constituency
Overall, word constituency is not shown, but hyphens are used within words as follows:

• between verb and auxiliary
• between verb and verb in a compound
• between adjective stem and ending
• after prefixes
• after numerals

Logographic versus phonographic writing
The transcription uses italics for phonographically written text, plain type for logographically written text, and underlined plain type for text which is not represented in the original script, but is included on the basis of reading tradition. Reading of logographically written text follows the readings in the critical edition of Nihon koten bungaku taikei (NBKT), published by Iwanami Shoten. The original script version also follows the NKBT where possible.

Transcription
Words and word forms are given in their phonemic shape. Where unusual phonogram usage may be thought to reflect spelling mistakes (for whatever reason), we use the normal spelling in the transcription. However, for the Eastern Old Japanese material, we give the sound value normally associated with individual phonograms (in their use to write the central Old Japanese language), also where we suspect usage may reflect simple spelling mistakes.

We use the Frellesvig & Whitman system for transcription of Old Japanese. The following two tables exemplify the notation of the distinction between kō-rui (甲類) and otsu-rui (乙類) syllables in this system in contrast with some other systems which have been used (including Ohno Susumu's system as used for example in the Iwanami Kogo jiten and the Yale system of Samuel E. Martin’s The Japanese language through time). Table 2 includes also the Modern Japanese ('NJ') shape of example words. See further about OJ phonology and transcription Bjarke Frellesvig, A history of the Japanese language, (2010, Cambridge University Press), pp. 26ff.

Syllable type	Index notation	Ohno	Modified Mathias- Miller	Yale	Frellesvig & Whitman
Kō-rui	i1	i	î	yi	i
Otsu-rui	i2	ï	ï	iy	wi
neutral	i	i	i	i	i
Kō-rui	e1	e	ê	ye	ye
Otsu-rui	e2	ë	ë	ey	e
neutral	e	e	e		e
Kō-rui	o1	o	ô	wo	wo
Otsu-rui	o2	ö	ö	o	o
neutral	o	o	o	o	o

Table 1. OJ transcription systems

 

Gloss	NJ	Frellesvig & Whitman	Index notation	Yale	Modified Mathias- Miller	Ohno
'fire'	hi	pwi	pi2	piy	pï	pï
'sun'	hi	pi	pi1	pyi	pî	pi
'blood'	chi	ti	ti	ti	ti	ti
'woman'	me	mye	me1	mye	mê	me
'eye'	me	me	me2	mey	më	më
'hand'	te	te	te	te	te	te
'child'	ko	kwo	ko1	kwo	kô	ko
'this'	ko	ko	ko2	ko	kö	kö
'ear (of rice)'	ho	po	po	po	po	po

Table 2. Examples