Hashimoto Shinkichi’s two works, as this feature has shown, differ entirely in character. One is a language for teaching modern Japanese in the classroom. The other is a tool for investigating, to excavate the Japanese of 1,300 years ago. After Hashimoto’s death, the two went entirely different ways.
The bunsetsu — a term that took root in the classroom
Let’s look first at the fate of the bunsetsu. In the 1930s Hashimoto wrote the textbook Shin Bunten and its commentary Shin Bunten Bekki (one of the books read in the close-reading article), setting up a system for teaching Japanese grammar to secondary-school students. After Hashimoto died in 1945, that system is widely said to have become the base for language classes in postwar schools. When students in junior-high Japanese classes today practice cutting sentences by inserting “ne” and splitting them into bunsetsu, it is an extension of this line.
As we saw in the Yamada Yoshio feature, this bunsetsu system was built from an entirely different starting point than the psychology-centered system Yamada built in Nihon Bunpōron (1908). Yamada’s chinjutsu theory became a “theory” that researchers keep debating. Hashimoto’s bunsetsu theory became a “tool” for teaching Japanese in classrooms. On the same subject of Japanese grammar, the two were left to posterity in entirely different forms.
Old Japanese kana usage — the handoff to Arisaka Hideyo
The other discovery, Old Japanese kana usage, was a problem on which Hashimoto himself, in Kodai Kokugo no On’in ni Tsuite (1942), had carefully taken the stance of “not pinning down what the sounds were” — and a younger generation took it up. The most prominent was Arisaka Hideyo (1908–1952).
Arisaka dug more deeply into the Type A/Type B distinction in man’yōgana that Hashimoto had sorted out. There were two threads.
- Interpreting it as a difference in vowels. Arisaka was deeply involved in developing what is called the eight-vowel theory — reading the Type A/B distinction Hashimoto had sorted out as reflecting a difference in vowels, so that Nara-period Japanese had eight vowels, more than the modern five.
- A law of vowel combinations within words. In the 1930s, Arisaka found a regularity: within native Japanese words, certain vowels don’t appear together in the same word root. This later came to be called “Arisaka’s Law.” It showed that the Type A/B distinction is not a mere sorting of characters but is deeply tied to how the sounds of Japanese themselves work.
Beyond the door that Hashimoto opened by “sorting out, thoroughly, the fact of how characters were used,” Arisaka answered the next question: how do those sounds combine within words?
What the two handoffs have in common
The bunsetsu and Old Japanese kana usage differ in content and in their influence on later generations, but they share something. In both, Hashimoto started from a “checkable fact,” and later generations built their own theories on top of it. The bunsetsu is a break in pronunciation that can be checked by ear. Old Japanese kana usage is a sorting of characters that can be checked by eye. Because these two firm foundations existed, the next generation could confidently put bold hypotheses on top of them.
Arisaka Hideyo himself will be read in detail in another installment of this “Modern Classics of Japanese” series.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| The bunsetsu afterward | Widely said to have become the base of school grammar; took root as a “tool” for teaching Japanese in classrooms |
| Contrast with Yamada Yoshio | Yamada’s chinjutsu became a “theory” researchers keep debating; Hashimoto’s bunsetsu became a classroom “tool” |
| Old Japanese kana usage afterward | Arisaka Hideyo and others developed it into the eight-vowel theory, reading it as a difference in vowels, and discovered a law of vowel combinations within words (Arisaka’s Law) |
| What they share | In both, later generations built their theories on “checkable facts” that Hashimoto provided |
In a nutshell — Hashimoto Shinkichi’s two works lived on in Japanese linguistics in entirely different forms: one as a classroom tool, the other as the ground for a bold hypothesis by younger researchers.