| Besides the well known existence of Kanji (Chinese characters) in the Japanese writing form; The pronunciation of the Kanji themselves, especially the onyomi form, was also based on the ancient Chinese pronunciation of the same characters. Because of the large temporal and spatial span of the Chinese origins, multiple pronunciations appeared in Japanese too, of which the2prominent phonological systems are the Goon and the Kanon. The Goon imitated the phonological system of lower Yangzi river region in Southern and Northern Dynasty, while the Kanon was modeled after those of the central part of China at the later Tang Dynasty. In other words, both the Goon and the Kanon are tightly related to the medieval Chinese. There have been extensive comparative study of the phonological systems of modern Chinese and the Japanese Goon and Kanon in the academia; from which we can trace back and reconstruct the medieval Chinese phonological system in addition to study the evolution on both sides.Ancient Chinese phonology can have3different finals, the vowel, the nasal and the stop consonant. This study is focused on the vocalic finals of both the Goon and the Kanon. The author first enumerate the most frequently used Kanji that have a vocalic finals in medieval Chinese, then go on to the corresponding parts in the Goon and the Kanon. Three main categories are developed with a taxonomy on the zero,I, u finals in Chinese and their corresponding Japanese short,～イand～ウfinals. Each categories is further divided down to individual vowels listed in<pingshuiyun> and a character by character comparison of the Goon and the Kanon was conducted. We tried to find out how the different finals, vowels, connections, tones and open/close mouth are represented in the Goon and the Kanon,and tried to deduce the underlying rules. Additionally, we also study the evolution of vocalic finals and tried to explain some of the characteristic phonological difference and how they evolved into the present date form. |
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