Japanese phonology is the system of sounds used in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. Unless otherwise noted, this article describes the standard variety of Japanese based on the Tokyo dialect .
70-534: Shogakukan Inc. ( 株式会社小学館 , Kabushiki-gaisha Shōgakukan , often pronounced as Shōgakkan due to devoicing ) is a Japanese publisher of comics , magazines , light novels , dictionaries , literature , non-fiction , home media , and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha , which also founded Hakusensha . These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group , one of
140-666: A cartoon making fun of Genghis Khan , founder of the Mongol Empire . The comic showed a mischievous boy doodling juvenile things on pictures of famous people, such as a dog's face on a picture of Albert Einstein . Genghis Khan was depicted with a crude rendering of male genitalia on his forehead. After some backlash, Shogakukan initially offered an apology addressed to the Mongolian Embassy in Tokyo on February 23, but that failed to mollify Mongolian expats in Japan, who regard Genghis Khan as
210-404: A consonant phoneme followed by itself: in this type of analysis, [ak̚ka] , [issai] , [sat̚tɕi] can be phonemically transcribed as /a kk a/ , /i ss ai/ , /sa tt i/ . Alternatively, since the contrast between different obstruent consonants such as /k/ , /s/ , /t/ is neutralized in syllable-final position, the first half of a geminate obstruent can be interpreted as an archiphoneme (just as
280-628: A following /ba/ (marking the conditional), forming [ɕaː] and [tɕaː] respectively, as in [kaɕaː] for /kaseba/ 'if (I) lend' and [katɕaː] for /kateba/ 'if (I) win.' On the other hand, per Vance (1987) , [tj, sj] (more narrowly, [tj̥, sj̥] ) can occur instead of [tɕ, ɕ] for some speakers in contracted speech forms, such as [tjɯː] for /tojuː/ 'saying', [matja(ː)] for /mateba/ 'if one waits', and [hanasja(ː)] for /hanaseba/ 'if one speaks'; Vance notes these could be dismissed as non-phonemic rapid speech variants. Hattori (1950) argues that alternations in verb forms do not prove [tɕ]
350-424: A geminate plosive or affricate is pronounced with just one release, so the first portion of such a geminate may be transcribed as an unreleased stop . As discussed above, geminate nasal consonants are normally analyzed as sequences of a moraic nasal followed by a non-moraic nasal, e.g. [mm] , [nn] = /Nm/ , /Nn/ . In the case of non-nasal consonants, gemination is mostly restricted by Japanese phonotactics to
420-513: 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 . These morphemes represent the Japanese phonetic adaptation of Middle Chinese monosyllabic morphemes, each generally represented in writing by a single Chinese character , taken into Japanese as kanji ( 漢字 ) . Japanese writers also repurposed kanji to represent native vocabulary; as
490-503: A moraic consonant by itself has the same prosodic weight as a consonant-vowel sequence: consequently, Vance transcribes Japanese geminates with two length markers, e.g. [sɑ̃mːːɑi] , [ipːːɑi] , and refers to them as "extra-long" consonants. In the following transcriptions, geminates will be phonetically transcribed as two occurrences of the same consonant across a syllable boundary, the first being unreleased. A common phonemic analysis treats all geminate obstruents as sequences starting with
560-410: A national hero. On February 26, Mongolians and citizens of China 's Inner Mongolia autonomous region resident in Japan sent a formal letter of protest to Shogakukan, while some 90 demonstrators protested in front of company headquarters. Major bookselling chains Kinokuniya , Miraiya and Kumazawa pulled the publication off shelves after the Mongolian Embassy in Tokyo filed an official complaint with
630-438: A number of restrictions on structure that may be violated by vocabulary in other layers. Japanese possesses a variety of mimetic words that make use of sound symbolism to serve an expressive function. Like Yamato vocabulary, these words are also of native origin, and can be considered to belong to the same overarching group. However, words of this type show some phonological peculiarities that cause some theorists to regard them as
700-414: A pause, word-initial /b, d, ɡ/ may be pronounced as plosives with zero or low positive voice onset time (categorizable as voiceless unaspirated or "short-lag" plosives); while significantly less aspirated on average than word-initial /p, t, k/ , some overlap in voice onset time was observed. A secondary cue to the distinction between /b, d, ɡ/ and /p, t, k/ in word-initial position is a pitch offset on
770-529: A pause. It is sometimes analyzed as a syllable-final allophone of the coronal nasal consonant /n/ , but this requires treating syllable or mora boundaries as potentially distinctive, because there is a clear contrast in pronunciation between the moraic nasal and non-moraic /n/ before a vowel or before /j/ : Alternatively, in an analysis that treats syllabification as distinctive, the moraic nasal can be interpreted as an archiphoneme (a contextual neutralization of otherwise contrastive phonemes), since there
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#1732880722835840-401: A restricted set of vowel sounds: the permitted sequences, [ja, jɯ, jo, wa] , are sometimes analyzed as rising diphthongs rather than as consonant-vowel sequences. 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. At
910-411: A result of sound changes. Called gairaigo ( 外来語 ) in Japanese, this layer of vocabulary consists of non-Sino-Japanese words of foreign origin, mostly borrowed from Western languages after the 16th century; many of them entered the language in the 20th century. In words of this stratum, a number of consonant-vowel sequences that did not previously exist in Japanese are tolerated, which has led to
980-648: A result, the sequences [ti si di (d)zi] do not occur in native or Sino-Japanese vocabulary. ) Likewise, original /tj/ came to be pronounced as [tɕ] , original /sj/ came to be pronounced as [ɕ] , and original /dj/ and /zj/ both came to be pronounced as [(d)ʑ] : Therefore, alveolo-palatal [tɕ dʑ ɕ ʑ] can be analyzed as positional allophones of /t d s z/ before /i/ , or as the surface realization of underlying /tj dj sj zj/ clusters before other vowels. For example, [ɕi] can be analyzed as /si/ and [ɕa] as /sja/ . Likewise, [tɕi] can be analyzed as /ti/ and /tɕa/ as /tja/ . (These analyses correspond to
1050-552: A result, there is a distinction between Sino-Japanese readings of kanji, called On'yomi , and native readings, called Kun'yomi . The moraic nasal /N/ is relatively common in Sino-Japanese, and contact with Middle Chinese is often described as being responsible for the presence of /N/ in Japanese (starting from approximately 800 AD in Early Middle Japanese ), although /N/ also came to exist in native Japanese words as
1120-454: A separate layer of Japanese vocabulary. Called kango ( 漢語 ) in Japanese, words in this stratum originate from several waves of large-scale borrowing from Chinese that occurred from the 6th-14th centuries AD. They comprise 60% of dictionary entries and 20% of ordinary spoken Japanese, ranging from formal vocabulary to everyday words. Most Sino-Japanese words are composed of more than one Sino-Japanese morpheme. Sino-Japanese morphemes have
1190-417: A small number of native forms with [ts] before a vowel other than /u/ , such as otottsan , 'dad', although these are marginal and nonstandard (the standard form of this word is otōsan ). Based on dialectal or colloquial forms like these, as well as the phonetic distance between plosive and affricate sounds, Hattori (1950) argues that the affricate [ts] is its own phoneme, represented by
1260-564: A study of type frequency in a lexicon and token frequency in a spoken corpus, Hall (2013) concludes that [t] and [tɕ] have become about as contrastive before /i/ as they are before /a/ . Some analysts argue that the use of [ti, di] in loanwords shows that the change of /ti/ to [tɕi] is an inactive, 'fossilized' rule, and conclude that [tɕi] must now be analyzed as containing an affricate phoneme distinct from /t/ ; others argue that pronunciation of /ti/ as [tɕi] continues to be an active rule of Japanese phonology, but that this rule
1330-414: A syllable-final nasal consonant. Aside from certain marginal exceptions , it is found only after a vowel, which is phonetically nasalized in this context . It can be followed by a consonant, a vowel, or the end of a word: Its pronunciation varies depending on the sound that follows it (including across a word boundary). At the end of an utterance, the moraic nasal is pronounced as a nasal segment with
1400-442: A variable place of articulation and degree of constriction. Its pronunciation in this position is traditionally described and transcribed as uvular [ ɴ ] , sometimes with the qualification that it is, or approaches, velar [ ŋ ] after front vowels. Some descriptions state that it may have incomplete occlusion and can potentially be realized as a nasalized vowel, as in intervocalic position. Instrumental studies in
1470-547: Is エリツィン , Eritsin , ' Yeltsin '. In many cases a variant adaptation with [tɕi] exists. Aside from arguments based on loanword phonology, there is also disagreement about the phonemic analysis of native Japanese forms. Some verbs can be analyzed as having an underlying stem that ends in either /t/ or /s/ ; these become [tɕ] or [ɕ] respectively before inflectional suffixes that start with [i] : In addition, Shibatani (1990) notes that in casual speech, /se/ or /te/ in verb forms may undergo coalescence with
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#17328807228351540-428: 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. All three show a high (over 90%) rate of plosive pronunciations after /Q/ or after a pause; after /N/ , plosive pronunciations occur at high (over 80%) rates for /b/ and /d/ , but less frequently for /ɡ/ , probably because word-medial /ɡ/ after /N/
1610-707: Is composed of /mʲ/ + /a/ . A third alternative is analyzing [ja, jo, jɯ] ~ [ʲa, ʲo, ʲɯ] as rising diphthongs ( /i͜a i͜o i͜u/ ), in which case [mʲa] is composed of /m/ + /i͜a/ . Nogita (2016) argues for the cluster analysis /Cj/ , noting that in Japanese, syllables such as [bja, ɡja, mja, nja, ɾja] show a longer average duration than their non-palatalized counterparts [ba, ɡa, ma, na, ɾa] (whereas comparable duration differences were not generally found between pairs of palatalized and unpalatalized consonants in Russian). The glides /j w/ cannot precede /j/ . The alveolar-palatal sibilants [tɕ ɕ (d)ʑ] can be analyzed as
1680-505: Is contrastive for both vowels and consonants, and the total length of Japanese words can be measured in a unit of timing called the mora (from Latin mora "delay"). Only limited types of consonant clusters are permitted. There is a pitch accent system where the position or absence of a pitch drop may determine the meaning of a word: /haꜜsiɡa/ ( 箸が , 'chopsticks'), /hasiꜜɡa/ ( 橋が , 'bridge'), /hasiɡa/ ( 端が , 'edge'). Japanese phonology has been affected by
1750-439: Is no context where the non-plosive pronunciations are consistently used, but they occur most often between vowels: These weakened pronunciations can occur not only in the middle of a word, but also when a word starting with /b, d, ɡ/ follows a vowel-final word with no intervening pause. 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/
1820-492: Is no contrast in syllable-final position between /m/ and /n/ . Thus, depending on the analysis, a word like 三枚 , sanmai , 'three sheets', pronounced phonetically as [sammai] , could be phonemically transcribed as /saNmai/ , /saɴmai/ , or /sanmai/ . There is a contrast between short (or singleton) and long (or geminate ) consonant sounds. Compared to singleton consonants, geminate consonants have greater phonetic duration (realized for plosives and affricates in
1890-486: Is often pronounced instead as a velar nasal [ŋ] (although the use of [ŋ] here may be declining for younger speakers). Across contexts, /d/ generally has a higher rate of plosive realizations than /b/ and /ɡ/ . Certain consonant sounds are called 'moraic' because they count for a mora , a unit of timing or prosodic length. The phonemic analysis of moraic consonants is disputed. One approach, particularly popular among Japanese scholars, analyzes moraic consonants as
1960-429: Is phonemically /t/ , citing kawanai (with /w/ ) vs. kai , kau , kae , etc. as evidence that a stem-final consonant is not always maintained without phonemic change throughout a verb's conjugated forms, and /joɴdewa/ ~ /joɴzja/ '(must not) read' as evidence that palatalization produced by vowel coalescence can result in alternation between different consonant phonemes. There are several alternatives to
2030-453: Is rare even among the most innovative speakers, but not entirely absent. To transcribe [si] , as opposed to [ɕi] , it is possible to use the novel kana spelling スィ ( su + small i ) (though this has also been used to transcribe original [sw] before /i/ in forms like スィッチ , 'switch' [sɯittɕi] , as an alternative to the spellings スイッチ , suitchi or スウィッチ , suwitchi ). The use of スィ and its voiced counterpart ズィ
2100-476: Is restricted from applying to words belonging to the foreign stratum. In contrast to [ti, di] , the sequences *[si, zi] are not established even in loanwords. English /s/ is still normally adapted as [ɕ] before /i/ (i.e. with katakana シ , shi ). An example is シネマ , shinema [ɕinema] from cinema . Likewise, English /z/ is normally adapted as [(d)ʑ] before /i/ (i.e. with katakana ジ , ji ). Pronouncing loanwords with [si] or [zi]
2170-437: Is somewhat unstable (it may be variably replaced with /ie/ or /e/ ), and other consonant + /je/ sequences such as [pje] , [kje] are generally absent. (Aside from loanwords, [tɕe ɕe] also occur marginally in native vocabulary in certain exclamatory forms. ) It has alternatively been suggested that pairs like [tɕi] vs. [ti] could be analyzed as /tji/ vs. /ti/ . Vance (2008) objects to analyses like /tji/ on
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2240-489: Is the imprint used for tankōbon editions of manga series serialized in Monthly CoroCoro Comic and Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic magazines. Japanese phonology#Devoicing There is no overall consensus on the number of contrastive sounds ( phonemes ), but common approaches recognize at least 12 distinct consonants (as many as 21 in some analyses) and 5 distinct vowels , /a, e, i, o, u/ . Phonetic length
2310-489: Is uncontroversial, there is disagreement among linguists about whether alveolo-palatal sibilants continue to function synchronically as allophones of coronal consonant phonemes: the identification of [tɕ] as a palatalized allophone of /t/ is especially debated, due to the presence of a distinctive contrast between [tɕi] and [ti] in the foreign stratum of Standard Japanese vocabulary. The sequences [ti, di] are found exclusively in recent loanwords; they have been assigned
2380-668: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs . In March 2018, Shogakukan issued another public apology, announced a national recall of the magazine and offered a refund to magazine patrons. CoroCoro Comic's website also published an apology by Asumi Yoshino, author of the serialized manga Yarisugi!!! Itazura-kun which contained the controversial image. Shogakukan produces (or makes part of the production of) anime based on their mangas, mostly through their subsidiary Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions . Tentōmusi Comics ( Japanese : てんとう虫コミックス【てんとうむしコミックス】 , Hepburn : Tentōmushi Komikkusu ) , abbreviated TC ,
2450-514: 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
2520-401: The 2010s showed that there is considerable variability in its realization and that it often involves a lip closure or constriction. A study of real-time MRI data collected between 2017 and 2019 found that the pronunciation of the moraic nasal in utterance-final position most often involves vocal tract closure with a tongue position that can range from uvular to alveolar: it is assimilated to
2590-799: The French market, and Kazé, Carlsen , Egmont and Tokyopop for the German market. Shogakukan, Shueisha and ShoPro have established a joint venture named Viz Media Europe . Viz Media Europe bought in 2009 the French Kazé Group whose activities are mainly publishing manga and home video for the French and German market. The company has a wholly-owned subsidiary, Shogakukan Asia , with headquarter in Singapore . Besides producing popular titles in English such as Detective Conan , Pokémon and Future Card Buddyfight ,
2660-402: The basis that the sequence /ji/ is otherwise forbidden in Japanese phonology. In core vocabulary, [ ɸ ] occurs only before /u/ and can be analyzed as an allophone of /h/ : Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Ltd. ( Japanese : 株式会社小学館集英社プロダクション , Hepburn : Kabushiki gaisha Shōgakukan Shūeisha Purodakushon , ShoPro for short)
2730-502: The company also partners with local creators such as Johnny Lau to publish comic series for distribution in Southeast Asia. Shogakukan has awards for amateur manga artists who want to become professional. It allows people to either send in their manga by mail or bring it in to an editor . On February 15, 2018, CoroCoro Comic ( " Gekkan Corocoro Comic "), a children's magazine published by Shogakukan, had in its March issue
2800-518: The consonant [p] generally does not occur at the start of native (Yamato) or Chinese-derived (Sino-Japanese) words, but it occurs freely in this position in mimetic and foreign words. Because of exceptions like this, discussions of Japanese phonology often refer to layers, or "strata," of vocabulary. The following four strata may be distinguished: Called wago ( 和語 ) or yamato kotoba ( 大和言葉 ) in Japanese, this category comprises inherited native vocabulary. Morphemes in this category show
2870-470: The contextual tendencies described above, regardless of whether they are underlyingly voiced or derived by rendaku from /tu/ and /ti/ . In core vocabulary, [ ts ] can be analyzed as an allophone of /t/ before /u/ : In loanwords, however, [ ts ] can occur before other vowels: examples include [tsaitoɡaisɯto] ツァイトガイスト , tsaitogaisuto , 'zeitgeist'; [eɾitsiɴ] エリツィン , Eritsin , ' Yeltsin '. There are also
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2940-446: The distinctions between /zi/ and /di/ and between /zu/ and /du/ , while others distinguish only /zu/ and /du/ but not /zi/ and /di/ . Yet others merge all four, e.g. north Tōhoku .) In accents with the merger, the phonetically variable [(d)z] sound can be transcribed phonemically as /z/ , though some analyze it as /dz/ , the voiced counterpart to [ts] . A 2010 corpus study found that in neutralizing varieties, both
3010-522: The end of an exclamation , or before a sonorant in forms with emphatic gemination , and ⟨ っ ⟩ is used as a written representation of [ʔ] in these contexts. This suggests that Japanese speakers identify [ʔ] as the default form of /Q/ , or the form it takes when it is not possible for it to share its place and manner of articulation with a following obstruent. Another approach dispenses with /Q/ and treats geminate consonants as double consonant phonemes, that is, as sequences consisting of
3080-486: The first half of any geminate obstruent. Some analyses treat /Q/ as an underlyingly placeless consonant. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the underlying phonemic representation of /Q/ might be a glottal stop / ʔ / —despite the fact that phonetically, it is not always a stop, and is usually not glottal—based on the use of [ʔ] in certain marginal forms that can be interpreted as containing /Q/ not followed by another obstruent. For example, [ʔ] can be found at
3150-464: The following 4 (/j w ts ɴ/), and Vance (2008) recognizes 21, equivalent to Smith's 12 plus the following 9 (/j w ts tɕ (d)ʑ ɕ ɸ N Q/). Consonants inside parentheses in the table can be analyzed as allophones of other phonemes, at least in native words. In loanwords, /ɸ, ts/ sometimes occur phonemically. In some analyses the glides [j, w] are not interpreted as consonant phonemes. In non-loanword vocabulary, they generally can be followed only by
3220-539: The following vowel: vowels after word-initial (but not word-medial) /p, t, k/ start out with a higher pitch compared to vowels after /b, d, ɡ/ , even when the latter are phonetically devoiced. Word-medial /b, d, ɡ/ are normally fully voiced (or prevoiced), but may become non-plosives through lenition. The phonemes /b, d, ɡ/ have weakened non-plosive pronunciations that can be broadly transcribed as voiced fricatives [β, ð, ɣ] , although they may be realized instead as voiced approximants [β̞, ð̞~ɹ, ɣ̞~ɰ] . There
3290-429: The form of a longer hold phase before the release of the consonant, and for fricatives in the form of a longer period of frication). A geminate can be analyzed phonologically as a syllable-final consonant followed by a syllable-initial consonant (although the hypothesized syllable boundary is not evident at the phonetic level) and can be transcribed phonetically as two occurrences of the same consonant phone in sequence:
3360-494: The fricative and the affricate pronunciation could be found in any position in a word, but the likelihood of the affricate realization was increased in phonetic conditions that allowed for greater time to articulate the consonant: voiced affricates were found to occur on average 60% of the time after /N/ , 74% after /Q/ , and 80% after a pause. In addition, the rate of fricative realizations increased as speech rate increased. In terms of direction, these effects match those found for
3430-471: The front vowels: only the palatalized version occurs before /i/ , and only the non-palatalized version occurs before /e/ (excluding certain marginal forms). Palatalized consonants are often analyzed as allophones conditioned by the presence of a following /i/ or /j/ . When this analysis is adopted, a palatalized consonant before a back vowel is interpreted as a biphonemic /Cj/ sequence. The phonemic analysis described above can be applied straightforwardly to
3500-442: The interpretation of [tɕ ɕ (d)ʑ] as allophones of /t s z/ before /i/ or /j/ . Some interpretations agree with the analysis of [ɕ] as an allophone of /s/ and [(d)ʑ] as an allophone of /z/ (or /dz/ ), but treat [tɕ] as the palatalized allophone of a voiceless coronal affricate phoneme / ts / (to clarify that it is analyzed as a single phoneme, some linguists phonemically transcribe this affricate as /tˢ/ or with
3570-401: The introduction of new spelling conventions and complicates the phonemic analysis of these consonant sounds in Japanese. Different linguists analyze the Japanese inventory of consonant phonemes in significantly different ways: for example, Smith (1980) recognizes only 12 underlying consonants (/m p b n t d s dz r k ɡ h/), whereas Okada (1999) recognizes 16, equivalent to Smith's 12 plus
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#17328807228353640-718: The largest publishing groups in Japan and the world. Shogakukan is headquartered in the Shogakukan Building in Hitotsubashi , part of Kanda , Chiyoda, Tokyo , near the Jimbocho book district. The corporation also has the other two companies located in the same ward . Shogakukan, along with Shueisha , owns Viz Media , which publishes manga from both companies in the United States . Shogakukan's licensing arm in North America
3710-467: The moraic nasal can be interpreted as an archiphoneme representing the neutralization of the contrast between the nasal consonants /m/ , /n/ in syllable-final position). The distinction between the voiced fricatives [z, ʑ] (originally allophones of /z/ ) and the voiced affricates [dz, dʑ] (originally allophones of /d/ ) is neutralized in Standard Japanese and in most (although not all) regional Japanese dialects. (Some dialects, e.g. Tosa , retain
3780-456: The non-IPA symbol /c/ (also interpreted to include [tɕ] before [i] ). In contrast, Shibatani (1990) disregards such forms as exceptional, and prefers analyzing [ts] and [tɕ] as allophones of /t/ , not as a distinct affricate phoneme. Most consonants possess phonetically palatalized counterparts. Pairs of palatalized and non-palatalized consonants contrast before the back vowels /a o u/ , but are in complementary distribution before
3850-411: The non-IPA symbol /c/ ). In this sort of analysis, [tɕi, tɕa] = /tsi, tsja/ . Other interpretations treat [tɕ ɕ (d)ʑ] as their own phonemes, while treating other palatalized consonants as allophones or clusters. The status of [tɕ ɕ (d)ʑ] as phonemes rather than clusters ending in /j/ is argued to be supported by the stable use of the sequences [tɕe (d)ʑe ɕe] in loanwords; in contrast, /je/
3920-427: The novel kana spellings ティ, ディ . (Loanwords borrowed before [ti] was widely tolerated usually replaced this sequence with チ [tɕi] or (more rarely) テ [te] , and certain forms exhibiting these replacements continue to be used; likewise, ジ [(d)ʑi] or デ [de] can be found instead of [di] in some forms, such as ラジオ , rajio , 'radio' and デジタル , dejitaru , 'digital'. ) Based on
3990-508: 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. The three alveolo-palatal sibilants [tɕ ɕ (d)ʑ] function, at least historically, as the palatalized counterparts of the four coronal obstruents [t s d (d)z] . Original /ti/ came to be pronounced as [tɕi] , original /si/ came to be pronounced as [ɕi] , and original /di/ and /zi/ both came to be pronounced as [(d)ʑi] . (As
4060-474: The palatalized counterparts of /p b k ɡ m n r/ , as in the following examples: The palatalized counterpart of /h/ is normally described as [ç] (although some speakers do not distinguish [ç] from [ɕ] ): In the analysis presented above, a sequence like [mʲa] is interpreted as containing three phonemes, /mja/ , with a complex onset cluster of the form /Cj/ . Palatalized consonants could instead be interpreted as their own phonemes, in which case [mʲa]
4130-399: The phonetic realization of special "mora phonemes" ( モーラ 音素 , mōra onso ): a mora nasal /N/ , called the hatsuon , and a mora obstruent consonant /Q/ , called the sokuon . The pronunciation of these sounds varies depending on context: because of this, they may be analyzed as "placeless" phonemes with no phonologically specified place of articulation . A competing approach rejects
4200-427: The position of the preceding vowel (for example, uvular realizations were observed only after the back vowels /a, o/ ), but the range of overlap observed between similar vowel pairs suggests this assimilation is not a categorical allophonic rule, but a gradient phonetic process. 5% of the utterance-final samples of the moraic nasal were realized as nasalized vowels with no closure: in this case, appreciable tongue raising
4270-529: The presence of several layers of vocabulary in the language: in addition to native Japanese vocabulary, Japanese has a large amount of Chinese-based vocabulary (used especially to form technical and learned words, playing a similar role to Latin-based vocabulary in English ) and loanwords from other languages. Different layers of vocabulary allow different possible sound sequences ( phonotactics ). Many generalizations about Japanese pronunciation have exceptions if recent loanwords are taken into account. For example,
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#17328807228354340-465: The representation of these sounds in the Japanese spelling system .) Most dialects show a merger in the pronunciation of underlying /d/ and /z/ before /j/ or /i/ , with the resulting merged phone varying between [ʑ] and [dʑ] . The contrast between /d/ and /z/ is also neutralized before /u/ in most dialects (see above ). While the diachronic origins of these sounds as allophones of /t s d z/
4410-410: The same consonant: a "mora obstruent" /Q/ . In this analysis, [ak̚ka] , [issai] , [sat̚tɕi] can be phonemically transcribed as /aQka/ , /iQsai/ , /saQti/ . This analysis seems to be supported by the intuition of native speakers and matches the use in kana spelling of a single symbol, a small version of the tsu sign ( hiragana ⟨ っ ⟩ , katakana ⟨ ッ ⟩ ) to write
4480-496: The start of a word, the voiceless stops /p, t, k/ are slightly aspirated —less so than English stops, but more than those in Spanish. Word-medial /p, t, k/ seem to be unaspirated on average. Phonetic studies in the 1980s observed an effect of accent as well as word position, with longer voice onset time (greater aspiration) in accented syllables than in unaccented syllables. A 2019 study of young adult speakers found that after
4550-491: The transcriptions /Q/ and /N/ and the identification of moraic consonants as their own phonemes, treating them instead as the syllable-final realizations of other consonant phonemes (although some analysts prefer to avoid using the concept of syllables when discussing Japanese phonology ). The moraic nasal or mora nasal ( hiragana ⟨ ん ⟩ , katakana ⟨ ン ⟩ , romanized as ⟨ n ⟩ or ⟨ n' ⟩ ) can be interpreted as
4620-430: The use of plosive vs. non-plosive pronunciations of the voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/ ; however, the overall rate of fricative realizations of /(d)z/ (including both [dz~z] and [dʑ~ʑ] , in either intervocalic or postnasal position) seems to be higher than the rate of non-plosive realizations of /b, d, ɡ/ . As a result of the neutralization, the historical spelling distinction between these sounds has been eliminated from
4690-403: The voiceless obstruents /p t k s/ and their allophones. (However, other consonant phonemes can appear as geminates in special contexts, such as in loanwords.) Geminate consonants can also be phonetically transcribed with a length mark, as in [ipːai] , but this notation obscures mora boundaries. Vance (2008) uses the length marker to mark a moraic nasal, as [sɑ̃mːbɑi] , based on the fact that
4760-543: Was ShoPro Entertainment ; it was merged into Viz Media in 2005. Shogakukan's production arm is Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (previously Shogakukan Productions Co., Ltd.) In March 2010 it was announced that Shogakukan would partner with the American comics publisher Fantagraphics to issue a line of manga to be edited by Rachel Thorn . In Europe , manga from Shōgakukan and Shūeisha are published by local publishers such as Pika Édition , Ki-oon , Kana and Kazé for
4830-554: Was mentioned, but not officially recommended, by a 1991 cabinet directive on the use of kana to spell foreign words. Nogita (2016) argues that the difference between [ɕi] and [si] may be marginally contrastive for some speakers, whereas Labrune (2012) denies that *[si, zi] are ever distinguished in pronunciation from [ɕi, (d)ʑi] in adapted forms, regardless of whether the spellings スィ and ズィ are used in writing. The sequence [tsi] (as opposed to either [tɕi] or [ti] ) also has some marginal use in loanwords. An example
4900-413: Was observed only when the preceding vowel was /a/ . There are a variety of competing phonemic analyses of the moraic nasal. It may be transcribed with the non- IPA symbol /N/ and analyzed as a "placeless" nasal. Some analysts do not categorize it as a phonological consonant. Less abstractly, it may be analyzed as a uvular nasal / ɴ / , based on the traditional description of its pronunciation before
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