On the interaction of fortition, lenition and Rendaku-voicing in Japanese Views from Experiments and Diachrony
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Abstract
The present study proposes an "underlying ɸ analysis" of the so-called ha-gyoo ‘h-column’ consonants in Japanese as an alternative to McCawley's (1968) "underlying p analysis." It is argued that ɸ as the input obstruent may surface as any of β, b, p, ɸ, ç and h due to the interaction of Rendaku voicing, fortition and other assimilatory processes. A series of production experiments were conducted and yielded, contrary to the popular belief, the findings such that both lenition and fortition apply to all voiced obstruents in Japanese, leading them to be predominantly but not categorically pronounced as continuants intervocalically and as non-continuants post-nasally. In the pursuit of explanations for these synchronic facts, various diachronic changes in the phonology and orthography of Japanese were also investigated. A wealth of historical evidence, especially in relation to the "confusion of the four kana characters," was found to eventually lend support to the proposed analysis of the ha-gyoo consonants.
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