Onset Cy and High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese
-
Manami Hirayama
and
Timothy J. Vance
Abstract
Japanese has contrasts between onsets romanized as singletons and Cy clusters (e.g., kaku ‘rank’ vs. kyaku ‘guest’). It is uncertain whether Cy should be treated as a distinctively palatalized consonant /Cy/ or as a /Cy/ cluster; the phonetic realization is compatible with either. A distributional argument favoring the /Cy/ analysis is the neutralization of the contrast before front vowels: Ci, Ce, *Cyi, *Cye; the absence of */Cyi/ and */Cye/ follows automatically from */yi/ and */ye/. In this paper, high vowel devoicing is used as a diagnostic to investigate this phonemicization issue. A production experiment was conducted, comparing the rates of vowel devoicing in words containing Cu/iC and CyuC sequences (e.g., maputa vs. mapyuta). The devoicing rate was significantly lower in CyuC than in Cu/iC. This supports the cluster analysis /Cy/ (with the /y/ inhibiting devoicing) over the singleton analysis /Cy/ for the onset palatalized consonants of Japanese.
Appendix
Full list of recorded words
The upper line in each row shows the kana as it was presented to the participants, and the lower line shows the romanized version.
| __ yu | __ i | __ u | __ yu | __ i | __ u | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| map__{t/d}a | マピュタ | マピタ | マプタ | マピュダ | マピダ | マプダ |
| mapyuta | mapita | maputa | mapyuda | mapida | mapuda | |
| p__{t/d}ama | ピュタマ | ピタマ | プタマ | ピュダマ | ピダマ | プダマ |
| pyutama | pitama | putama | pyudama | pidama | pudama | |
| mak__{t/d}a | マキュタ | マキタ | マクタ | マキュダ | マキダ | マクダ |
| makyuta | makita | makuta | makyuda | makida | makuda | |
| k__{t/d}ama | キュタマ | キタマ | クタマ | キュダマ | キダマ | クダマ |
| kyutama | kitama | kutama | kyudama | kidama | kudama | |
| mah/f__{t/d}a | マヒュタ | マヒタ | マフタ | マヒュダ | マヒダ | マフダ |
| mahyuta | mahita | mafuta | mahyuda | mahida | mafuda | |
| h/f__{t/d}ama | ヒュタマ | ヒタマ | フタマ | ヒュダマ | ヒダマ | フダマ |
| hyutama | hitama | futama | hyudama | hidama | fudama | |
| rap__ta | ラピュタ | ラピタ | ラプタ | |||
| rapyuta | rapita | raputa | ||||
| k__pura | キュプラ | キプラ | クプラ | |||
| kyupura | kipura | kupura |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Lexical V-V compounds in child Japanese: An experimental study
- Psychological deictic –te kuru compared to passive: The case of victims’ stories in Japanese
- Japanese pronoun hon-nin
- On the grammaticalization of Japanese verbal negative marker
- Onset Cy and High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese
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- Book Review
- Mineharu Nakayama Yi-ching Su Aijun Huang John Benjamins: Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Lexical V-V compounds in child Japanese: An experimental study
- Psychological deictic –te kuru compared to passive: The case of victims’ stories in Japanese
- Japanese pronoun hon-nin
- On the grammaticalization of Japanese verbal negative marker
- Onset Cy and High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese
- How native speakers of Japanese try to sound polite
- Book Review
- Mineharu Nakayama Yi-ching Su Aijun Huang John Benjamins: Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain
