Japanese/Korean Linguistics

This study proposes a framework for comparing the historical development of loanword prosody, focusing on loanwords from Middle Chinese in three Sinosphere languages: Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. By examining the influence of the source language, its retention in contemporary forms, and the direction of historical change in irregular correspondences, this study reveals divergent prosodic trajectories. Although all three languages originally reflected Middle Chinese tonal categories, their historical developments differ significantly. Sino-Vietnamese words exhibit high retention of Middle Chinese tones with sporadic exceptions. Sino-Korean words maintain substantial source influence while reshaping irregular patterns through analogical change toward a dominant accentual pattern. In contrast, Sino-Japanese words show a structural departure from Middle Chinese tonal categories, developing a novel accentuation system based on mora count in the Modern period. Finally, this study explores typological and sociolinguistic factors, such as the degree of Chinese cultural influence, to account for these divergences.