Did つ (助数詞) actually mean の?


There are quite a few examples were tsu actually means no. まつ毛・睫毛・睫 matsuge
actually comes from 目の毛 me no ke (ma is another pronunciation for 目 me) 沖つ宮
okitsumiya（aslo written 沖津宮, but, as Meikyou tells us, 沖津 stands for 沖つ which
in turn stands for 沖の) 中つ国 nakatsukuni, Middle-earth (like Tolkien's middle-
earth)

I'm thinking:

  1. maybe みっつ、よっつ、むっつ、よっつ and so on are just later modifications in the pronunciation of みつ、よつ、むつ、よつ etc., and
  2. you can find these original pronunciations (みつ、よつ...) only as prefixes (as far as I know, but actually this is not that relevant), e.g. 三つ巴、三ツ星、三つ指、四つ切...

...so what I'm saying is it would make sense if つ (the generic classifier)
actually meant の like in the words at the beginning of this post, meaning it
was a particle with very similar use. That would obviously imply numerals had
been used without a counter-word (but with a particle1), but that's not such a
surprise, because there's the same pattern in a few other words, like
二の腕、一の宮、三の糸、二の丸... Also, looking at the pronounces of numerals, is it possible
tsu always followed kun'yomi, while no followed on'yomi?

1 I add this because using a numeral without a counter-word and without a
particle is even less of a surprise, since, due to lack of counter-words(?),
you get expressions like 三次元 or ３説




## Did つ (助数詞) actually mean の?

No.

## Did つ (not as a 助数詞) actually mean の?

Yes, in some ways, sometimes.

## Breaking things down

Japanese has several different つ elements that can come at the end of things.

### つ〔助動詞〕

Indicates completion of verb action, also known as the **perfective** aspect.
This was much more productive in older stages of the language. It persists in
modern Japanese as the て conjunctive ending, in certain set construction
patterns like 行き​ **[つ]{●}** ​戻り​ **[つ]{●}** ​, and in the つつ continuative
ending as in 変わり​ **[つ]{●}** ​​ **[つ]{●}** ​ある.

The modern past-tense ending た evolved from classical たり, which in turn was a
contraction of the 連用形{れんようけい} or continuative form て of this same つ, + あり: て
+ あり → たり → た.

### つ〔副助詞〕

Affixed to terms describing amounts or portions, and indicating that each
amount or portion is of equal size. Equivalent to, and possibly derived from,
ずつ. That said, ずつ is from older spelling づつ which is listed in some
dictionaries as a reduplication of the counter つ (see below).

### つ〔接尾／助数詞〕

A counter, suffixed to native-Japanese numbers as a nominalizer (i.e. it forms
nouns). In modern Japanese, you generally need a の between `[NUMBER]`つ and a
noun, but in Old Japanese, this could be immediately followed by a noun.

My dead-tree copy of Shogakukan's 国語{こくご}大辞典{だいじてん}, [大辞泉{だいじせん} at
Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AE%87-456292#E3.83.87.E3.82.B8.E3.82.BF.E3.83.AB.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E6.B3.89),
and [大辞林{だいじりん} at
Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%80%8B%E3%83%BB%E7%AE%87-324356#E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E6.9E.97.20.E7.AC.AC.E4.B8.89.E7.89.88),
all list this as the 訓読み for the counter suffix 個 or 箇, more commonly read as
_ko_ or _ka_.

### つ〔格助詞〕

This is the one you're thinking of.

Described in
[Daijirin](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%A4-570135#E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E6.9E.97.20.E7.AC.AC.E4.B8.89.E7.89.88)
(third つ entry down) as:

> 体言または体言に準ずるものに付いて，連体修飾語をつくる。  
>  Attaches to a nominal or a something acting as a nominal, and forms an
> attributive modifier.

This is like modern uses of の when one noun, or noun-like term or phrase, is
used to modify another. 青い車の人 _"a blue-car person → a person of the blue car"_
, 犬飼いの人 _"a dog-keeping person → a person who is keeping a dog"_ , etc.

It's a fine distinction, but it appears that Old Japanese つ in this particle
usage did not indicate possession (one thing belonging to another): that was
expressed by either が or の. According to Shogakukan, the distinction between
the two was that が indicated a closer relationship than の.

### Derivations

If you're interested in the question of **where the heck did this all come
from** , a fellow named Bjarke Frellesvig has been doing some interesting
research into the origins of the Japanese language. If memory serves, he has a
theory that the ancient precursor to the Japanese language may have had two
kinds of copula (like English "is" or "to be"), one that started with **n**
and gave rise to the particles に and の and the perfective ending ぬ, and one
that started with **t** and gave rise to the particles て and と and the
perfective ending つ. Many moons ago,
[snailplane](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/users/1478/snailplane)
recommended Frellesvig's [_A History of the Japanese
Language_](https://books.google.com/books?id=v1FcAgiAC9IC), which I have yet
to dive into. I suspect this would be a good deep-dive book for the Japanese
learner who is also a hardcore word nerd.

### Addendum

The final つ in みっつ is the noun-forming counter. According to Shogakukan, the
modern 促音{そくおん} (geminate) readings like みっつ、よっつ are just sound shifts from
earlier みつ、よつ, and are not evidence of みつ + つ.

We know that these number words are nouns as they can be followed by particles
such as は and に and を, in constructions that require nouns or noun phrases.
This holds true even back to the _Man'yōshū_ , where we can find instances of
ひとつ immediately followed by these particles.

Notably, Japanese does not always require a の between one noun and another,
when the first noun is modifying the second one. In the modern language, there
are examples of this all over the place -- but these are more commonly thought
of as compounds, words like 日本猿{にほんざる} (Japanese macaque) or 雲形{くもがた} (cloud
shape) or 兎小屋{うさぎごや} (rabbit hutch). Similarly, 七{なな}つ (seven, the seventh of
something) + 時{とき} (hour) = 七{なな}つ時{どき} (the seventh hour in the old
timekeeping system).

