Talk:上

Should we have a specific note that this character is commonly used in Japan for books which are published in two parts? — Hippietrail 16:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm the edited def says this is also used for 3-volume sets. I only have one in my collection and rather than 上 and 下, it uses 第1部, 第2部, and 第3部. Can anybody clarify? — Hippietrail 16:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

In addition, a 2-volume set is called 上下巻, and 3-volume one is called 上中下巻 likewise. I'd like you to have a look at google hits of these words, as the results would be suggestive to you. 第1部, 第2部 and 第3部, and 上巻, 中巻 and 下巻 are the frequently-used alternative forms of 上, 中 and 下 in our current context. --Tohru 17:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm going to and add 上下巻 and 上中下巻 to the stuff in my http://www.librarything.com catalogue now! — Hippietrail 15:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Derivation

I'm not above acknowledging "exception to the rule" (e.g. woto2ko1 seemingly violates Arisaka's rule against co-occurrence of o2 & o1; or is Arisaka's law only applicable within a morpheme's boundary???); yet, I'm skeptical that 上 kami1 originates from bound-form kamu- + -i い, as -u- + -i- always yields -i2. Oxford-NINJAL Corpus' list of words contains no kamu- bound-form which means "up", "upward", above". etc. Erminwin (talk) 16:18, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• @Erminwin, ⟨oto₂ko₁⟩ is an oddball mostly because of modern perspective. It originates as a two-word compound, where ⟨oto₂-⟩ is from OJP verb おつ (“to be young; to become young”) as the /o/-form of the verb stem, presumably the 未然形. ⟨otu⟩ → "o" shift → ⟨oto₂⟩ is expected. The ko₁ on the end is the noun ko, commonly spelled 子 in modern JA, and 児 in older forms (including man'yōgana).

However, the stated derivation of kami here at 上#Etymology_4 is a mistake.

• @Poketalker, looks like that crept in when you expanded the entry.

As Erminwin notes above, kamu + i → kamui → ⟨kami₂⟩, as at 神. This combination of u + i does not produce ⟨i₁⟩. The phonetic relationship between the kami and kamu forms for 上 is quite different. かむ is listed in the KDJ as a 表記-only form for reading かん, itself a contraction of かみ. See also the Daijisen / Daijirin entries for the かん reading at Kotobank.

HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks to @Eirikr for both explanations. So may I re-write 上#Etymology_5, namely ⟨kaɴ⟩ as "a contraction of かみ ⟨kami₁⟩; かん's reading かむ ⟨kamu⟩ is listed in the KDJ as a 表記-only form", & include KDJ in the list of references? Erminwin (talk) 03:20, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• @Erminwin, I've updated Etym 4 and 5 a bit just to account for formatting and where the information should live.  :) Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:20, 31 October 2018 (UTC)