It seems very strange to me that the 終止形 and 連体形 of a word like 食べる used to be
食ぶ and 食ぶる, Vovin says in his A REFERENCE GRAMMAR OF CLASSICAL JAPANESE PROSE
that 食べ is the stem to which -u, -uる and -uれ are attached to. 食be + -uる ->
食beuる -> 食ぶる. So my question is how exactly did 食ぶる become 食べる again? Since
食ぶる is already the contracted form used in all situations. Is it due to
dialectal difference like how in Eastern Japan -(a)ない was already present but
was just never written down except in some scant poetry?
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2021-09-19T15:18:18.340
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2021-09-19T15:18:18.340
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question
grammar classical-japanese language-evolution
How did Classical Japanese's 二段 (bigrade) become modern Japanese's 一段 (monograde)? Especially in regards to the 終止形 and 連体形?