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This article deals with the phonology (i.e. the sound system) of the Japanese language.
[edit] Consonants
[edit] VowelsJapanese has 5 vowels:
_vowels.svg) The Japanese vowels are pronounced as monophthongs, unlike in English; except for /u/, they are similar to their Spanish or Italian counterparts. Vowels have a phonemic length distinction (short vs. long). Compare contrasting pairs of words like ojisan /ozisaɴ/ "uncle" vs. ojiisan /oziisaɴ/ "grandfather", or tsuki /tuki/ "moon" vs. tsūki /tuuki/ "airflow". In most phonological analyses, all vowels are treated as occurring with the time frame of one mora. Phonetically long vowels, then, are treated as a sequence of two identical vowels. For example, ojiisan is /oziisaɴ/ not /oziːsaɴ/. Within words and phrases, Japanese allows long sequences of phonetic vowels without intervening consonants, although the pitch accent and slight rhythm breaks help track the timing when the vowels are identical.
[edit] Phonological processesJapanese contains a number of phonological processes which greatly alter the phonetic realization of consonants and vowels. A few are listed below. [edit] Consonant processesSee also: Rendaku [edit] WeakeningNon-coronal voiced stops /b, ɡ/ between vowels may be weakened to fricatives, especially in fast and/or casual speech:
However, /ɡ/ is further complicated by its variant realization as a velar nasal [ŋ]. Standard Japanese speakers can be categorized into 3 groups (A, B, C), which will be explained below. If a speaker pronounces a given word consistently with the allophone [ŋ] (i.e. a B-speaker), that speaker will never have [ɣ] as an allophone in that same word. If a speaker varies between [ŋ] and [ɡ] (i.e. an A-speaker) or is generally consistent in using [ɡ], then the velar fricative [ɣ] is always another possible allophone in fast speech. /ɡ/ may be weakened to nasal [ŋ] when it occurs within words — this includes not only between vowels but also between a vowel and a consonant. There is a fair amount of variation between speakers, however. Some, such as Vance (1987), have suggested that the variation follows social class; others, such as Akamatsu (1997), suggest that the variation follows age and geographic location. The generalized situation is as follows. At the beginning of words:
In the middle of simple words (i.e. non-compounds):
In the middle of compound words morpheme-initially:
So, for some speakers the following two words are a minimal pair while for others they are homophonous:
To summarize using the example of hage はげ 'baldness':
[edit] Palatalization and affricationThe palatals /i/ and /j/ palatalize the consonants they follow:
For coronal consonants, the palatalization goes further so that alveolopalatal consonants correspond with dental or alveolar consonants ([ta] 'field' vs. [tɕa] 'tea'):[4]
/i/ and /j/ also palatalize /h/ to a palatal fricative ([ç]): /hito/ → [çi̥to] hito 人 ('person') Of the allophones of /z/, the affricate [dz] is most common, especially at the beginning of utterances and after /ɴ/ (or /n/, depending on the analysis), while fricative [z] may occur between vowels. Both sounds, however, are in free variation. The [n̠ʲ] is alveolopalatal, not a true palatal. In the case of the /s/, /z/, and /t/, when followed by /j/, historically, the consonants were palatalized with /j/ merging into a single pronunciation. In modern Japanese, these are arguably separate phonemes, at least for the portion of the population that pronounces them distinctly in English borrowings.[citation needed]
The vowel /u/ also affects consonants that it follows:[5]
Although [ɸ] and [ts] occur before other vowels in loanwords (e.g. [ɸaito], 'fight'; [tsaitoɡaisu̥to], 'Zeitgeist'; [eɾitsiɴ], 'Yeltsin'), *[hu͍] is still not distinguished from ɸu͍] (e.g. English hoop > [ɸu͍pu]).[6] Similarly, *[si] and *[zi] do not occur even in loanwords so that English cinema becomes [ɕinema].[7] [edit] Moraic nasalSome analyses of Japanese treat the moraic nasal as an archiphoneme /N/. However, other, less abstract approaches take its uvular citation pronunciation as basic, or treat it as a regular coronal /n/. Even when the nasal coda is proposed as /N/, it is in a complementary distribution with the nasal onsets within a syllable. In any case, it undergoes a variety of assimilatory processes. Within words, it is variously:
Some speakers produce /n/ before /z/, pronouncing them as [ndz], while others produce a nasalized vowel before /z/ (see Akamatsu 1997). The assimilation occurs beyond word boundaries. [edit] Moraic obstruentIn some analyses of Japanese, an archiphoneme /Q/ is posited, corresponding to some uses of the sokuon っ. However, not all scholars agree that this is the best analysis. Even when the the non-nasal coda is proposed as /Q/, it is in a complementary distribution with the non-nasal onsets. In those approaches that incorporate the moraic obstruent, it is said to completely assimilate to the following obstruent, resulting in a geminate (that is, double) consonant. The assimilated /Q/ remains unreleased and thus the geminates are phonetically long consonants. /Q/ does not occur before vowels or nasal consonants. This archiphoneme has several phonetic realizations, for example:
Another analysis of Japanese dispenses with /Q/ and other archiphonemes entirely. In this approach, the words above are phonemicized as shown below:
The sokuon can be noted in IPA with a ː mark instead of a doubled consonant (i.e. [nʲipːõɴ] instead of [nʲip.põɴ], [kasːẽɴ] instead [kas.sẽɴ], etc.). However, it cannot show the syllable boundaries well. [edit] /d, z/ neutralization
[edit] TrillOccasionally the post-alveolar flap /ɾ/ is realized as a trill [r], especially when conveying a vulgar nuance in speech. The phenomenon is called rolled tongue (巻き舌 makijita) in Japanese, and is usually transcribed by repeating the katakana syllable ru (ガルルルル for dog growling, プルルルル for phone ringing etc). In the Kansai region, it is sometimes used in a provocative sense with words like ahondara あほんだら 'dumbass' and kora こら 'hey!' (with a nuance of disapproval). [edit] Vowel processes[edit] DevoicingIn many dialects, the high vowels /i/ and /u/ become devoiced when between voiceless consonants.[8] When a word contains more than one such environment, however devoicing in adjacent syllables doesn't normally occur. Additionally, /i/ and /u/ are devoiced following a downstep and a voiceless consonant at the end of a prosodic unit.[citation needed]
This devoicing is not restricted to only fast speech, though consecutive voicing may occur in fast speech.[9] To a lesser extent /o/ may devoice with the further requirement that there be two or more adjacent moras containing /o/:[citation needed]
The common sentence-ending copula desu and polite suffix masu are typically pronounced [desu̥] and [masu̥].[citation needed] Gender roles also play a part: it is regarded as effeminate to pronounce devoiced vowels as voiced, particularly the terminal "u" as in "arimasu". Some nonstandard varieties of Japanese can be recognized by their hyper-devoicing, while in some Western dialects and some registers of formal speech, every vowel is voiced.[citation needed] [edit] NasalizationJapanese vowels are slightly nasalized when adjacent to nasals /m, n/. Before the moraic nasal /ɴ/, vowels are heavily nasalized:
[edit] Glottal stop insertionAt the beginning and end of utterances, Japanese vowels may be preceded and followed by a glottal stop [ʔ], respectively. This is demonstrated below with the following words (as pronounced in isolation):
When an utterance-final word is uttered with emphasis, this glottal stop is plainly audible, and is often indicated in the writing system with a small letter tsu っ called a sokuon. [edit] PhonotacticsIn the same way that English words are divided into syllables, Japanese words are divided into moras (as the katakana and hiragana phonetic writing systems explicitly do). Each mora has the same approximate time value and stress (stress, here, being correlated with pitch, not loudness). The Japanese mora may consist of either a vowel or one of the two moraic consonants, /N/ and /Q/. A vowel may be preceded by an optional (non-moraic) consonant, with or without a palatal glide /j/. In this table, the period represents a division between moras, rather than the more common usage of a division between syllables.
Consonantal moras are restricted from occurring word initially, though utterances starting with [n] are possible. Vowels may be long, and consonants may be geminate (doubled). Geminate consonants are limited to /ɴn/, /ɴm/ and sequences of /Q/ followed by a voiceless obstruent, though some words are written with geminate voiced obstruents. In the analysis without archiphonemes, geminate clusters are simply two identical consonants, one after the other. In English, stressed syllables in a word are pronounced louder, longer, and with higher pitch, while unstressed syllables are relatively shorter in duration. In Japanese, all moras are pronounced with equal length and loudness. Japanese is therefore said to be a mora-timed language. [edit] Foot structure
[edit] ProsodyMain article: Japanese pitch accent Standard Japanese has a distinctive pitch accent system: a word can have one of its moras bearing an accent or not. An accented mora is pronounced with a relatively high tone and is followed by a drop in pitch. The various Japanese dialects have different accent patterns, and some exhibit more complex prosodic systems. [edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
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