Professor Bjarke Frellesvig
Tutor for Graduates & Tutorial Fellow in Japanese
Professor of Japanese Linguistics
Bjarke was an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Copenhagen where he studied Japanese and Linguistics. He received his Ph.D. there in 1993. Before coming to Oxford in 1999 he worked at the University of Copenhagen and at the University of Oslo in Norway. Bjarke is a Fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and has also amongst others served as President of the European Association for Japanese Studies (2015-18).
Bjarke is currently Tutor for Graduates in Hertford. For any college graduate matters, please email tutorforgraduates@hertford.ox.ac.uk
Faculty webpage: https://www.ames.ox.ac.uk/people/bjarke-frellesvig
Bjarke teaches undergraduate tutorials in Japanese and particularly in Classical Japanese and Japanese Linguistics. In the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty, he teaches Classical Japanese and lectures on the History and Structure of Japanese and on Old Japanese.
Graduate teaching
Bjarke teaches premodern Japanese and Japanese linguistics and language history for graduate degrees in Japanese (both in the Humanities Division and in the Social Science Division) and in Linguistics. He also supervises research students within Japanese language and linguistics, in the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty and in the Faculty for Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics.
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Research interests
Bjarke has worked and published primarily on the history and pre-history of the Japanese language. His book A history of the Japanese language (published 2010 by Cambridge University Press, paperback 2011) gives a comprehensive overview over the history of the Japanese language as it is reflected in written sources, going back to the beginning of the 8th century AD. In 2024, he published, as co-editor with Professor Satoshi Kinsui, the Handbook of historical Japanese linguistics. He has published widely on a number of specific issues within Japanese historical phonology and morphology and on the reconstruction of proto-Japanese. Since 2009 much of his work has been on the syntax of Old Japanese, first as the Principal Investigator of a large international collaborative research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and from 2012 as the Project Director and Editor-in Chief of a related project, The Oxford-NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese which has been adopted by the British Academy as an Academy Research Project. This ongoing project is includes a digital corpus of all texts from the Old Japanese period (8th century), annotated with a rich variety of linguistic and other information about the texts, and also an Old Japanese – English dictionary, all published online and freely accessible, see https://oncoj.ninjal.ac.jp/.
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Publications
Electronic online publication
- 2018 onwards (ongoing). Bjarke Frellesvig, Stephen Wright Horn (editors-in-chief).The Oxford-NINJAL Corpus of Old Japanese https://oncoj.ninjal.ac.jp/
Books
Single authored
- Bjarke Frellesvig. A history of the Japanese language. Cambridge University Press.
- Bjarke Frellesvig. A case study in diachronic phonology: the Japanese onbin sound changes. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Edited
- Bjarke Frellesvig, Satoshi Kinsui (eds.). Handbook of Historical Japanese Linguistics. De Gruyter Mouton.
Volume 1 in the Handbooks in Japanese Language and Linguistics series.
- Bjarke Frellesvig, Peter Sells (eds.). Japanese/Korean Linguistics 20. CSLI: Stanford.
- Bjarke Frellesvig, Jieun Kiaer, Janick Wrona (eds.). Studies in Japanese and Korean Linguistics. London: Lincom.
- Bjarke Frellesvig, John Whitman (eds.). Proto-Japanese: Issues and prospects (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 294). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Bjarke Frellesvig, Masayoshi Shibatani, John Charls Smith (eds.). Current issues in the history and structure of Japanese. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.
- Bjarke Frellesvig, Roy Starrs (eds.). Japan and Korea: Contemporary Studies. Proceedings of the Fourth Nordic Symposium on Japanese And Korean Studies. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
- Bjarke Frellesvig, Christian Morimoto Hermansen (eds.). Florilegium Japonicum. Studies Presented to Olof G. Lidin on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.
Articles and book chapters
- “On the reconstruction of pre-Old Japanese morphology: OJ grammatical morphemes reflecting pre-OJ *k- ~ *s-”. In Japanese/Korean Linguistics 29, ed. by Kaoru Horie, Kimi Akita, Yusuke Kubota, David Y. Oshima, and Akira Utsugi, 25-49. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
- “On otsu-rui Ci2 and Ce2 and root-final consonants in pre-Old Japanese”. In
Studies in Asian historical linguistics, philology and beyond: Festschrift presented to Alexander V. Vovin in honor of his 60th birthday, edited by John Kupchik, Marc Miyake and José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente, 35-48. Brill.
2021 (With Hirofumi Aoki). “Verb verb complex predicates in Old and Middle Japanese”. In Verb-Verb complexes in Asian languages, edited by Taro Kageyama, Peter Hook, and Prashant Pardeshi, pp. 44-69. Oxford University Press.
- “From preverbal to postverbal in the early history of Japanese”. In Perspectives on language structure and language change, edited by Lars Heltoft, Iván Igartua, Brian D. Joseph, Kirsten Jeppesen Kragh and Lene Schøsler [= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 345], pp. 233-51. John Benjamins.
- (with Stephen Horn and Yuko Yanagida). “A Diachronic Perspective on Differential Object Marking in Pre-modern Japanese: Old Japanese and Early Middle Japanese”, Diachrony of differential argument marking, edited by Ilja A. Seržant and Alena Witzlach-Makarevich, pp. 183-207. Berlin: Language Science Press.
DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1228255
- “The history of the language”. In The Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics, edited by Yoko Hasegawa, pp. 15-39. Cambridge University Press.
- “On feature ranking in Japanese onset obstruents”. In Studies in Japanese and Korean historical and theoretical linguistics and beyond: Festschrift presented to John B Whitman, edited by William McClure and Alexander Vovin, pp. 22-36. Leiden: Brill.
- “Old and Middle Japanese”. In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, edited by Mark Aronoff (Editor-in-Chief).
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.278
2017 (with Takehiko Maruyama, Stephen Horn and Kerri Russell). “On the Multiple Clause Linkage Structure of Japanese: A Corpus-based Study”. In New Steps in Japanese Studies: Kobe University Joint Research (Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies 5), edited by Nobuo Kazashi and Marcella Mariotti, pp. 131-154. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari.
2016 (with John Whitman). “The historical source of the bigrade transitivity alternations in Japanese”. Transitivity and Valency Alternations: Studies on Japanese and Beyond, edited by Taro Kageyama and Wesley Jacobsen, pp. 289-310. De Gruyter Mouton.
2015 (with Stephen Horn and Yuko Yanagida). “Differential object marking in Old Japanese: A corpus based study.” In Historical Linguistics 2013: Selected papers from the 21st International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Oslo, 5-9 August 2013, edited by Dag Haug, pp. 195-211. John Benjamins.
- “Why romanize a corpus of (Old) Japanese?”. コーパスと日本語史研究 Corpus-Based Historical Studies in Japanese, edited by Yasuhiro Kondo, Makiro Tanaka, and Toshinobu Ogiso, pp. 167-175. Hituzi Syobo Publishing.
- “Okkusufoodo joodai nihongo koopasu [オックスフォード上代日本語コーパス The Oxford Corpus of Old Japanese]”. Nihongogaku [published by Meiji Shoin], 33/14, pp. 42-54.
- “Remarks on the verb suru in Old Japanese – A corpus based study. 上代日本語の「スル」について — コーパスによる研究”. NINJAL Project Review Vol.3 No. 3, pp. 152-77.
- (with Stephen W. Horn, Kerri L. Russell, and Peter Sells). “Provisional and Conditional Clauses in Old Japanese.” Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics (= MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 67), edited by Umut Ozge, pp. 65-78.
- “私が薦めるケンブリッジ大学出版局の本 The languages of Japan (Masayoshi Shibatani) [Watashi ga susumeru Kenburijji Daigaku Shuppankyoku no hon: The languages of Japan (Masayoshi Shibatani)]”. Daigaku Shuppan 93, 16-17. Tokyo.
- “Chronological layering in proto-Japanese and pre-Old Japanese verb inflection”. In Studies in Japanese and Korean Linguistics, edited by Bjarke Frellesvig, Jieun Kiaer and Janick Wrona, pp. 28-47. London: Lincom.
2011 (with John Whitman) “Prenominal Complementizers and the Derivation of Complex NPs in Japanese and Korean”. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 18, ed. by William McClure and Marcel van Dikken, pp. 73-87. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
- (with Stephen W Horn, Kerri L Russell and Peter Sells). “Verb Semantics and Argument Realization in Pre-Modern Japanese: A Preliminary study of Compound Verbs in Old Japanese”. Gengo Kenkyū 138:25-65.
- (with Janick Wrona) “The Old Japanese case system: The function of wo.” Japanese/Korean Linguistics 17, ed. by Shoichi Iwasaki et al., pp. 565-579. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
- (with John Whitman) “The Japanese/Korean Vowel Correspondences.” Japanese/Korean Linguistics 13, ed. by Mutsuko Endo Hudson et al., pp. 15-28. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
- (With John Whitman) “Introduction”. In Proto-Japanese: Issues and prospects (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 294), edited by Bjarke Frellesvig and John Whitman, pp. 1-12. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- (With John Whitman) “Evidence for seven vowels in proto-Japanese”. In Proto-Japanese: Issues and prospects (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 294), edited by Bjarke Frellesvig and John Whitman, pp. 15-41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- “On reconstruction of proto-Japanese and pre-Old Japanese verb inflection”. In Proto-Japanese: Issues and prospects (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 294), edited by Bjarke Frellesvig and John Whitman, pp. 175-192. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- “On the verb morphology of Old Japanese”. In Current issues in the history and structure of Japanese, edited by Bjarke Frellesvig, Masayoshi Shibatani and John Charles Smith), pp. 219-52. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.
- “The haunted log-palace: a new interpretation of a passage in the Hôjôki”. Studies in Chinese language and culture: festschrift in honour of Christoph Harbsmeier on the occasion of his 60th birthday, ed. by Christoph Anderl and Halvor Eifring, 107-20. Oslo: Hermes Academic Publishing.
- “The verb morphology of Old Japanese”. Nanzan Linguistics 2, 106-13.
- (with John Whitman). “The vowels of Proto-Japanese”. Japanese Language and Literature 38, 281-99.
- “A common Korean and Japanese copula”. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 10/1, 1-35.
- “Recent Changes in the Tonology of Kyoto Japanese”. Historical Linguistics 1995, Volume 1: General issues and non-Germanic Languages. Selected papers from the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, August 1995 (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 161), ed. by John Charles Smith and Delia Bentley, 111-124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- “The Prosodic Shape of ‑mono Derivatives in Kyoto Japanese”. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 31, 91-124.
- “A common Korean and Japanese noun particle: Korean ulo :: Japanese to”. Selected Papers from the 11th International Conference on Korean Linguistics – July 6-9, 1998, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, ed. by Byung-Soo Park, James Hye Suk Yoon, 336-45. Seoul.
- “Accent, Word Tone and Metatony in Central Japanese”. On’in Kenkyuu / Phonological Studies (published by the Phonological Society of Japan) 1, 195-202.
- “Japansk”. Aschehoug og Gyldendals Store Norske Leksikon 8, 106-7. Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget.
- “Koreansk”. Aschehoug og Gyldendals Store Norske Leksikon 9, 97. Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget.
- “On the Interpretation of Written Sources as Evidence for the Phonology of Earlier Language Stages – with special regard to the reconstruction of early Old Japanese”. Copenhagen Working Papers in Linguistics 3, 97-131.
- “Review” of Diversity in Japanese Culture and Language, ed. by John C. Maher and Gaynor Macdonald, London & New York: Kegan Paul International, 1995. The Pacific Review 9/1, 137-9.
- (with L. Littrup). “Søren Christian Egerod. 8. juli 1923 – 21. april 1995”. Årbog 1995. Københavns Universitet, 807-12.
- “A Cultured Encounter: Dr Thunberg meets Mr Matsuhiro”. Cultural Encounters: China, Japan, and the West, ed. by Søren Clausen, Roy Starrs, Anne Weddell-Wedellsborg, 109-25. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
- Grammatikkompendium til Nihongo Chuukyuu. 2. reviderede udgave [Grammar explanations to the textbook Nihongo Tyuukyuu (Japan Foundation, 1990); 2nd rev. edit.]. Copenhagen: Department of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen. [in Danish; 1st edit. 1992, several reprints.]
- “Morphemic Tone and Word Tone in Central Japanese”. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 27, 147-61.
- “On the Misconception That Kanzi Are Ideograms – and some general implications for the teaching and learning of kanzi”. Proceedings of Nordic Symposium on Teaching Japanese – Methods and Improvements, 21 – 23 August, 1993, ed. by Mette H. Sørensen, Michael Stebbing, 94-104. Vedbæk: Tokai University European Center.
- “The Consonants of Old Japanese – a phonological interpretation”. European Studies in Japanese Linguistics 1988-90, ed. by Lone Takeuchi, 11-27. London: Lone Publications.
- “The Emergence of the Syllable Final Nasal Phoneme in Japanese”. Folia Linguistica Historica VIII/1-2, 269-308.