Historical Precursor to な?


Prior to the development of the な particle (presumably from なる) several
hundred years ago, what constructions were used where な-construtions are
currently used? E.g. in the phase きれいな女, would that have been きれいの女, 女のきれい,
きれい女 (and would that be kireionna or kirei onna?), きれいなる女 or something else?




It is from なる, in a way; but it may not be the one you're thinking of. The なる
here is the 連体形 of the former copula なり, which itself derives from に+あり
(modern ある). This seems to have been the copula as far back as we have records
of. Indeed, this kind of adjective is younger than the copula it uses - these
kinds of adjectives do not occur before the Heian-jidai.

A couple of forms do appear that have since become them (e.g. adjectives
ending in -らか), but I don't know how these were used - my source (Bentley's
Descriptive Grammar of Old Japanese Prose) mentions their existence, but only
says that these なり-based adjectives are new as of the Heian-jidai; it says
nothing at all about how they were used in Old Japanese. I would speculate
that they're used in the very old adjective patterns that require no
morphology at all: so just like you can get /awo sora/ (/səra/?) where you
would expect /awo-ki sora/, I bet you could get /tapiraka umi/ when later you
would expect /taɸiraka=naru umi/ (for 平らかな海).

As for きれい, it's a Chinese loanword, and was loaned after the creation of
these kinds of adjectives. So there was never a point in time before きれいなる女 -
you would have used a native Japanese word like 美しい, and so you would have
either /utukusi-ki womina/ or the older /utukusi womina/.




It is from なる, in a way; but it may not be the one you're thinking of. The なる
here is the 連体形 of the former copula なり, which itself derives from に+あり
(modern ある). This seems to have been the copula as far back as we have records
of. Indeed, this kind of adjective is younger than the copula it uses - these
kinds of adjectives do not occur before the Heian-jidai.

A couple of forms do appear that have since become them (e.g. adjectives
ending in -らか), but I don't know how these were used - my source (Bentley's
Descriptive Grammar of Old Japanese Prose) mentions their existence, but only
says that these なり-based adjectives are new as of the Heian-jidai; it says
nothing at all about how they were used in Old Japanese. I would speculate
that they're used in the very old adjective patterns that require no
morphology at all: so just like you can get /awo sora/ (/səra/?) where you
would expect /awo-ki sora/, I bet you could get /tapiraka umi/ when later you
would expect /taɸiraka=naru umi/ (for 平らかな海).

As for きれい, it's a Chinese loanword, and was loaned after the creation of
these kinds of adjectives. So there was never a point in time before きれいなる女 -
you would have used a native Japanese word like 美しい, and so you would have
either /utukusi-ki womina/ or the older /utukusi womina/.

