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Article published In:
On the Systematic Nature of Writing Systems
Edited by David F. Mora-Marín and Lynne Cahill
[Written Language & Literacy 26:1] 2023
► pp. 57–75

Chaos or system?

Reassessing the unique case of the Japanese writing system

ORCID logo | Tama University
| Hiroshima Shudo University

This paper seeks to reassess the balance between chaos and systematicity within the Japanese writing system (JWS), which is noted for its complexity. As potential factors for chaos, Section 2 focuses on two important conventions. The first is the simultaneous use of multiple scripts as components of a largely systematic whole, even though it also affords considerable levels of graphematic variation. The second convention of dual-readings turns on kanji graphematically mapping to both Native-Japanese (NJ) and Sino-Japanese (SJ) morphemes, which yields the JWS’s intriguing form of morphography. However, as a factor that is, to a considerable degree, a major source of systematicity, Section 3 outlines the graphematic representation of SJ compound words. More specifically, starting from the morphological structures of two-kanji compound words (2KCWs), Section 3 introduces the dominant morphological patterns of three-kanji (3KCWs) and four-kanji compound words (4KCWs), which underscore the significance of 2KCWs within the Japanese mental lexicon, and concludes by noting Hatano, Kuhara, and Akiyama’s (1981) study about inferring the meanings of SJ compound words.

Keywords: systematicity, writing systems, Japanese writing system, compound words, semantic transparency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Chaotic factors?
    • 2.1Multiple scripts as a chaotic factor?
    • 2.2Dual-readings as a chaotic factor?
  • 3.Compound morphology as a systematic factor?
    • 3.1The morphological structures of 2KCWs
    • 3.2Dominant morphological structures of 3KCWs and 4KCWs
    • 3.3Inferring the meanings of SJ compound words
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00073.joy
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