Japanese phonology

The following four strata may be distinguished:[1][3][4] Called wago (和語)[4] or yamato kotoba (大和言葉) in Japanese, this category comprises inherited native vocabulary.

Sino-Japanese morphemes have a limited phonological shape: each has a length of at most two moras, which Ito & Mester (2015a) argue reflects a restriction in size to a single prosodic foot.

[22][23] Lawrence (2004) analyzes the glides as non-syllabic variants of the high vowel phonemes /i, u/, arguing the use of [j, w] vs. [i, ɯ] may be predictable if both phonological and morphological context is taken into account.

Maekawa (2018) found that, as with the pronunciation of /z/ as [dz] vs. [z], the use of plosive vs. non-plosive realizations of /b, d, ɡ/ is closely correlated with the time available to a speaker to articulate the consonant, which is affected by speech rate as well as the identity of the preceding sound.

This analysis seems to be supported by the intuition of native speakers[97] and matches the use in kana spelling of a single symbol, a small version of the tsu sign (hiragana ⟨っ⟩, katakana ⟨ッ⟩) to write the first half of any geminate obstruent.

[106] As a result of the neutralization, the historical spelling distinction between these sounds has been eliminated from the modern written standard except in cases where a mora is repeated once voiceless and once voiced, or where rendaku occurs in a compound word: つづく[続く] /tuzuku/, いちづける[位置付ける] /itizukeru/ from |iti+tukeru|.

The use of the historical or morphological spelling in these contexts does not indicate a phonetic distinction: /zu/ and /zi/ in Standard Japanese are variably pronounced with affricates or fricatives according to the contextual tendencies described above, regardless of whether they are underlyingly voiced or derived by rendaku from /tu/ and /ti/.

[125] The alveolar-palatal sibilants [tɕ ɕ (d)ʑ] can be analyzed as the palatalized allophones of /t s z/, but it is debated whether this phonemic interpretation remains accurate in light of contrasts found in loanword phonology.

Examples include [ɸiɴ] (フィン, fin, 'fin'), [ɸeɾiː] (フェリー, ferī, 'ferry'), [ɸaɴ] (ファン, fan, 'fan'), [ɸoːmɯ] (フォーム, fōmu, 'form'), and [ɸjɯː(d)ʑoɴ] (フュージョン, fyūjon, 'fusion').

Onset [ŋ], called bidakuon (鼻濁音), is generally restricted to word-internal position,[167] where it may occur either after a vowel (as in 禿, hage, 'baldness' [haŋe][168]) or after a moraic nasal /N/[169] (as in 音楽, ongaku, 'music' [oŋŋakɯ~oŋŋakɯ̥][170]).

[180] In cases where the second morpheme in a compound starts with [ɡ] when used independently, the compound might be pronounced with either [ɡ] or [ŋ] by consistent nasal speakers: factors such as the lexical stratum of the morpheme may play a role, but it seems difficult to establish precise rules predicting which pronunciation occurs in this context, and the pronunciation of some words varies even among consistent nasal speakers, such as 縞柄, shimagara, 'striped pattern' [ɕimaɡaɾa~ɕimaŋaɾa].

[181] The morpheme 五, go, 'five', is pronounced with [ɡ] when it is used as part of a compound numeral, as in [ɲi(d)ʑɯːgo] 二十五, nijū-go, 'twenty-five' (accented as [ɲiꜜ(d)ʑɯːgoꜜ]),[13] although 五 can potentially be pronounced as [ŋo] when it occurs non-initially in certain proper nouns or lexicalized compound words, such as [tameŋoɾoː] 為五郎 (a male given name), [ɕitɕiŋosaɴ] 七五三 (the name of a festival for children aged seven, five or three), or [(d)ʑɯːŋoja] 十五夜 (a night of the full moon).

[206] However, full glotal stops (with interrupted voicing) have been found to occur through acoustic analyses (previous descriptions by Bloch, Martin and Vance were impressionistic), albeit seldom in individual words and much less commonly even in slowly read sentences.

[253] However, it has been argued in response that other phenomena show at least the underlying presence of a vowel phoneme: Japanese speakers are usually not even aware of the difference of the voiced and devoiced pair.

This is also found in interjections like あっ, a and えっ, e. An attempt at producing a glottal stop may not be complete, which may result in a period of creaky voice and be characterized as a "near miss."

Vance (1987) suggests there might be a strong tendency to reduce superheavy syllables to the length of two moras in speech at a normal conversational speed, saying that tooQta is often indistinguishable from toQta.

[307][312] Ohta (1991) accepts superheavy syllables ending in /RQ/ and /JQ/ but describes /NQ/ as hardly possible, stating that he and the majority of the informants he consulted judged examples such as /roNdoNQko/ to be questionably well-formed in comparison to /roNdoNko/.

[314][315] Ito & Mester (2018) state that compounds formed from words of this shape often exhibit variable accentuation, citing guriꜜinsha~guriiꜜnsha, Uターン率, yuutaaꜜnritsu~yuutaꜜanritsu, 'U-turn percentage', and マクリーン館, makuriiꜜnkan ~ makuriꜜinkan, 'McLean Building'.

[316] Ito & Mester (2015b) note that the pitch-based criterion for syllabifying VV sequences would suggest that Sendaiꜜkko is syllabified as Sen.da.ik.ko;[309] likewise, Ohta (1991) reports a suggestion by Shin’ichi Tanaka (per personal communication) that the accentuation tookyooꜜkko implies the syllable division -kyo.oQ-, although Ohta favors the analysis with a superheavy syllable based on intuitition that this word contains a long vowel and not a sequence of two separate vowels.

[317] Ito and Mester ultimately question whether the placement of pitch accent on the second mora really rules out analyzing a three-mora sequence as a single superheavy syllable.

[336] In contrast, Watanabe (2009) prefers the analysis /hu/ and argues that /h/ in this context is distinct phonemically and sometimes phonetically from the /f/ [ɸ] found in foreign /fa fe fi fo/[337] (which would leave */fu/ as a gap).

They can be represented in kana by トゥ and ドゥ, which received official recognition by a cabinet notice in 1991 as an alternative to the use of [tsɯ] [(d)zɯ] or [to] [do] to adapt foreign [tu] [du].

[341] If analyzed as phonemes, the moraic consonants /N/ and /Q/ show a number of phonotactic restrictions (although some constraints can be violated in certain contexts, or may apply only within certain layers of Japanese vocabulary).

However, word-initial geminates may occur in casual speech as the result of elision: In native Japanese vocabulary, /Q/ is found only before /p t k s/[15] (this includes [ts], [tɕ] and [ɕ], which can be viewed as allophones of /t/ and /s/); in other words, before voiceless obstruents other than /h/.

[358] Geminate /h/ is found only in recent loanwords (e.g. バッハ, Bahha, 'Bach' [bahha~baχχa],[15] マッハ, mahha, 'mach', ゴッホ, Gohho, 'Gogh', マッヘ, mahhe, 'mache', チューリッヒ, Chūrihhi, 'Zurich'), and rarely in Sino-Japanese or mixed compounds (e.g. 十針, juhhari, 'ten stitches', 絶不調, zeffuchō, 'terrible slump').

[379] Adjectives may take an emphatic pronunciation where the second consonant is geminated and the following vowel is lengthened, as in naggaai < nagai, 'long', karraai < karai, 'hot', kowwaai < kowai, 'dreadful'.

In addition, word-initial /b d ɡ z/ occur frequently in the mimetic stratum of native Japanese vocabulary, where they often function as sound-symbolic variants of their voiceless counterparts /p h t k s/.

Nevertheless, Japanese exhibits a number of morphophonological processes that can change the shape of morphemes when they are combined in compounds, derived words, or inflected forms of verbs or adjectives.

If the resulting mora is /i/, the onbin is called i-onbin (イ音便); if /u/, u-onbin (ウ音便); if /Q/ (促音, sokuon), sokuonbin (促音便); and if /N/ (撥音, hatsuon), hatsuonbin (撥音便).

Descriptions of Japanese phonology during the late Edo period and Meiji era were based on fanqie,[440] a method of analyzing Middle Chinese syllables into an initial (that is, an onset consonant) and a final (a rhyme).