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Paper short abstract

This study investigates referential density in the history of Japanese using manually annotated data and corpus analysis. I demonstrate a diachronic increase in overt argument realisation and show that it is conditioned by morphosyntactic change, genre and register variation, and language contact.

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates referential density (RD) in the history of Japanese, asking how reference is distributed across overt argument NPs, pronominal forms, and morphology. Building on Bickel’s (2003) RD1 (overt argument NPs per available argument positions) and Noonan’s (2003) RD2 (overt arguments per verb), I introduce two indices capturing the referential contribution of exaltation morphology (keigo): RDex1 (markers per available arguments) and RDex2 (markers per verb).

Because RD is best assessed in extended discourse, the Old Japanese (OJ) component draws on the only substantial prose sources, Shoku-Nihongi Senmyō and Engi-shiki Norito, alongside their Contemporary Japanese translations. I triangulate the annotated results with corpus evidence (Oxford-NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese and Kainoki Treebank), and extend the analysis to Early and Late Middle Japanese (EMJ – LMJ) materials spanning courtly narrative, diary prose, and contact-mediated didactic and translation prose.

Two findings stand out: (i) RD1 is broadly stable, while RD2 increases diachronically, indicating more overt arguments per predicate in later stages; and (ii) RDex decreases, reflecting reduced reliance on exaltation morphology as a referential resource.

The EMJ – LMJ comparison shows that, alongside morphosyntactic change, genre and register strongly condition RD. Courtly narrative and performative registers sustain low RD via morphology-mediated reference tracking and topic continuity, whereas expository and didactic prose favours overt NPs. Detailed annotation of Heike Monogatari suggests that exaltation-related effects on argument realisation are construction-sensitive, clustering in specific predicate morphologies and discourse environments.

Finally, I argue that language contact adds further pressure towards overt reference. Late Middle Japanese Christian translation prose, rich in light-verb constructions (LVCs) with Sino-Japanese verbal nouns, reshapes predicate packaging and argument expression. Likewise, post-Meiji contact with European languages correlates with increased pronoun use and more explicit participant tracking in translated and modern written styles. Methodologically, the paper highlights challenges in annotating zero forms and morphology-driven reference in historical corpora, and the resulting limits of corpus-only RD measures.

This study forms part of my DPhil project on reference tracking and argument realisation in Japanese.