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Paper short abstract

Japanese is often labeled agglutinative without critical reflection. This paper revisits agglutination as a scalar typological concept and applies it to Japanese, showing that while many features are agglutinative, others complicate a simple classification.

Paper long abstract

Japanese has long been classified as a prototypical agglutinative language in both general linguistic typology and Japanese linguistics. This classification is often treated as self-evident and used as a descriptive starting point rather than as an object of critical reflection. At the same time, the notion of agglutination is frequently employed in an underspecified manner and rarely discussed in relation to other typological concepts such as inflection, fusion, or cumulative exponence.

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the status of Japanese as an agglutinative language by revisiting agglutination as a general typological concept. From a contemporary typological perspective, agglutination is not understood as a discrete language type, but as a scalar phenomenon defined by a set of interacting parameters, including the formal uniformity of grammatical morphemes, the transparency of morpheme boundaries, the mode of attachment to lexical stems, and the degree to which grammatical meanings are accumulated or kept separate.

On the basis of these parameters, the paper outlines a prototypical model of agglutination and situates individual languages along a continuum that also includes inflectional and fusional tendencies. This framework is then applied to Japanese, whose grammatical structure displays both strongly agglutinative properties and features that complicate a straightforward classification. Particular attention is paid to phenomena discussed in Japanese linguistics, such as verbal complexes, auxiliary elements, syncretism, and partial functional overlap.

By confronting typological approaches to agglutination with analyses developed within Japanese linguistics, the paper seeks to clarify the descriptive value and limits of the term “agglutinative” as applied to Japanese and to argue for a more nuanced characterization of its grammatical structure.

Selected bibliography

• Haspelmath, Martin et al. (eds.). 2001. Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook. Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter.

• Croft, William. 2003. Typology and Universals. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Minegishi, Makoto. 2000. Ruikeiron kara mita bunpō riron. Tokyo: Hitsuji shobō.

• Niwa, Kazuya. 2012. Nihongo wa dono yō-na kōchakugo ka – Yōgen fukugōtai no kenkyū. Tokyo: Hitsuji shobō.