連濁

is a pronunciation change seen in some compound words in Japanese. When rendaku occurs, a voiceless consonant (such as ) is replaced with a voiced consonant (such as ) at the start of the second (or later) part of the compound. For example, the morpheme starts with the voiceless consonant when used as an independent word or as the first part of a compound word, but this is replaced with the corresponding voiced consonant in the compound word , from + .

Although rendaku is common, it does not occur in all compound words. A rule known as Lyman's law blocks rendaku when the second element already contains a voiced obstruent phoneme (, , , or ). For instance, in , the in remains voiceless because contains . Rendaku is also blocked almost always when the second element of a compound is a recent loan into Japanese. Furthermore, rendaku may fail to occur even in contexts where no definite blocking factor is present.

In the Japanese writing system, rendaku affects how a morpheme is spelled when using one of the kana syllabaries: it causes the ''dakuten'' ("voicing mark", written as ゛) to be added to the upper right corner of the kana character that represents the first consonant and vowel in the second element of the compound. This is seen when comparing the hiragana spelling of () to that of (). Rendaku is not marked in writing when a morpheme is spelled using kanji (logographs taken from Chinese characters). For example, is written with the kanji character , which is unchanged when used in the spelling of .

Linguistically, rendaku involves aspects of both pronunciation (phonology) and word structure (morphology), and so is categorized as a morphophonological phenomenon.

Effects

Rendaku replaces a voiceless obstruent consonant with a voiced consonant sound. For example, the voiceless alveolar plosive becomes the voiced alveolar plosive in the context of rendaku. In this case, the new consonant retains the same manner and place of articulation as the original consonant. However, rendaku can also cause additional changes depending on the sounds involved.

Pronunciation

In the context of Japanese phonology, some consonant sounds that seem distinct to English speakers, and that have distinct spellings in Hepburn romanization, are analyzed as allophones (contextual variants of a phoneme). The following table describes the effects of rendaku in the standard variety of Japanese, using both phonemic transcriptions (marked by slashes, such as ) and phonetic transcriptions (marked by square brackets, such as ).

Depending on the accent and age of a speaker, the voiced velar nasal may be used in Japanese as an alternative to the voiced velar stop , mainly in cases where the consonant occurs in the middle of a word. For speakers who use in the middle of words, is replaced with in the context of rendaku. The sounds and are typically analyzed as allophones of a single phoneme (although some phonologists have argued they are distinct phonemes for the minority of speakers who consistently distinguish them).

The voiceless affricates are commonly analyzed as allophones of . Originally, corresponded to voiced affricate sounds , whereas corresponded to voiced fricative sounds . However, the historical distinction between and has been lost in the Tokyo-based standard (though not in all regional varieties of Japanese). The merged sounds may be pronounced either as voiced affricates or voiced fricatives, regardless of etymology (see ''yotsugana''). Therefore, historical and have merged as phonetic , and historical and have merged as phonetic . In the context of rendaku, dialects with the merger may be analyzed as possessing an underlying phonemic distinction between and that becomes neutralized on the phonetic level as . Alternatively, treats rendaku as replacing the phoneme with before . A third approach is taken by , who rejects the identification of as allophones of , and instead postulates five voiceless phonemes and three voiced phonemes , with rendaku turning into , into , and into , respectively.

Rendaku turns the voiceless glottal fricative into the voiced bilabial plosive . This is because Japanese descends originally from a voiceless bilabial plosive *. Before the end of the 16th century, * developed into a bilabial fricative or labiodental fricative . Then, during the 17-18th centuries, this or developed into glottal before and palatal before or , remaining only before the vowel phoneme (which is currently pronounced ). As a result, in modern Japanese, rendaku replaces with .

Spelling

It is possible to characterize rendaku in terms of its effect on a morpheme's Japanese kana spelling: it adds the ''dakuten'' (voicing mark) to the first kana of the affected morpheme. The relevant graphemes are shown in the tables below (excluding yōon digraphs, which are formed by taking an i-column kana and placing a small ''ya, yu,'' or ''yo'' kana after it).

When morphemes that begin with the morae ''chi'' (/) and ''tsu'' (/) undergo rendaku, the resulting morae ''ji'' and ''zu'' are generally spelled with the kana / and /, rather than the identically pronounced / and /. This is not a strict rule, however, and is relaxed in certain older compounds or names, especially those that are not easily recognized as compounds.

Examples

The following table shows an example of rendaku for each major allophone of the eligible consonant sounds:

Historical origin

The voiced obstruent consonants of modern Japanese come from the prenasalized obstruents of Old Japanese. Rendaku may have originated from the fusion of consonants with preceding nasal sounds derived from reduction of either the genitive postposition or the dative postposition . For example, may be derived from "mountain- bird", by means of fusing with the following to form prenasalized in Old Japanese. This hypothesis helps explain why rendaku is not found in all compound words. If some compounds were originally formed with or , but others were formed through simple juxtaposition of roots, then rendaku would develop regularly only in the first category.

By the Old Japanese period, rendaku had already become grammatically distinct from constructions with or . This is shown by the use of forms such as "your bird": a corresponding phrase with would be ungrammatical, since the genitive of the pronoun "you" was formed exclusively with the postposition .

Conditions

Rendaku occurs most frequently in compounds where the second element is a single morpheme of native Japanese origin that does not already contain a voiced obstruent phoneme. However, even though rendaku is usual in this context, it does not invariably occur: there are numerous exceptions pronounced without rendaku. Some compound words are pronounced with rendaku by some speakers, but without it by other speakers.

Rendaku is blocked when a voiced obstruent phoneme is already present in the second element of the compound. This rule, called Lyman’s law, is highly reliable, with only a small number of exceptions.

Rendaku is also blocked if the second element is a recent loanword from a language other than Chinese (gairaigo). This rule likewise has few exceptions.

Rendaku does not affect most Sino-Japanese elements, but this tendency is less consistent. A substantial minority do undergo rendaku as the second element of a compound. It has been speculated that Sino-Japanese elements that can undergo rendaku might have become "vulgarized", that is, adopted into the same category of vocabulary as native Japanese morphemes.

Other rules have been proposed regarding circumstances where rendaku is either blocked or favored, but often, it is only possible to identify tendencies rather than inviolable rules.

Lyman's law

Lyman's Law is a fundamental constraint on rendaku that prohibits voicing when the second element of a compound already contains a voiced obstruent phoneme (, , , or , including allophones such as and ). These phonemes are all written with the dakuten and called in Japanese. For example:
* + → (surname) ("mountain" + "gate" → place name). Rendaku does not occur because already contains a voiced obstruent consonant phoneme . Therefore, its initial consonant remains voiceless, and the form *''Yamagado'' やまがど does not exist (* indicates a non-existent form).
* + → ("one person" + "travel" → "traveling alone"), not *. Rendaku does not occur because already contains a voiced obstruent consonant phoneme .
* + → ("mountain" + "fire" → "mountain fire"), not *. Rendaku does not occur because already contains a voiced obstruent consonant phoneme (in the form of its allophone ).

The precise formulation of Lyman's law varies between analysts. In particular, there are conflicting viewpoints on the size of the phonological domain in which it applies. One formulation states that ''rendaku'' is blocked by the presence of voiced obstruent consonant "within a morpheme"; this may be interpreted as a consequence of a more general constraint that applies also to the underived form of native Japanese morphemes, which do not generally contain more than one voiced obstruent phoneme. An alternative view is that Lyman's law applies whenever a voiced obstruent consonant occurs anywhere within the second element of a compound, and so might also include cases where this element is composed of more than one morpheme. Rendaku occasionally (although relatively infrequently) causes voicing of the initial consonant of a Sino-Japanese () lexeme that is written with two kanji, and is in etymological terms composed of two Sino-Japanese roots; it is debatable whether such lexemes count as one morpheme or two from a synchronic perspective.

In modern Japanese, the presence of a voiced obstruent phoneme in the first element does not normally block rendaku, as demonstrated by examples such as + → . Nevertheless, it has been proposed that in certain circumstances, Lyman's law might be (or might once have been) sensitive to the presence of a voiced obstruent in the first element of a compound. Compound personal names ending in the element 'rice field' seem to usually show rendaku when the final mora of the first element contains (e.g. ), but never show rendaku when the final mora of the first element contains (e.g. ) (and usually do not show rendaku when it contains ). The pattern of voicing seen in compounds like these may in part be a residue of an older version of the law that operated in Old Japanese. Examination of Old Japanese compounds suggests that Old Japanese had a constraint against two consecutive syllables starting with a prenasalized consonant (the source of modern Japanese /voiced obstruent phonemes), but over time, this constraint came to be replaced with the modern tendency for a consonant to block rendaku only when it occurs in the second element of the compound.

Some formulations of the law treat it as applicable only in cases where the /voiced obstruent phoneme is the second consonant of the final element of the compound. In the case of Old Japanese, there is not enough evidence to conclude whether the Old Japanese version of Lyman's law applied to morphemes containing a prenasalized consonant in their third or later syllable. In modern Japanese, however, there is evidence that Lyman's law applies in general to morphemes of this form, as indicated by the lack of rendaku in examples such as + → or + → . There are only a handful of exceptions, such as + → , where voicing occurs despite the presence of a /voiced obstruent consonant in the second element of the compound.

Although this law is named after Benjamin Smith Lyman, who independently propounded it in 1894, it is really a re-discovery. The Edo period linguists Kamo no Mabuchi (1765) and Motoori Norinaga (1767–1798) separately and independently identified the law during the 18th century.

Source language of the second element

Another important factor affecting the likelihood of rendaku is the etymological source or lexical stratum of the second element of the compound. Rendaku frequently affects wago (native Japanese lexemes), infrequently affects kango (Sino-Japanese vocabulary), and very rarely affects gairaigo (recent loanwords, such as borrowings from English). On the other hand, the lexical stratum of the first element of the compound is not relevant.

One possible reason for the resistance of Sino-Japanese morphemes to rendaku is the greater potential for it to cause homophony in this context. Native Japanese morphemes very rarely start with a voiced obstruent consonant, but this does not apply to Sino-Japanese; therefore, rendaku of Sino-Japanese morphemes is more likely to neutralize a contrast between distinct morphemes.

Kango

Sino-Japanese vocabulary is built from Sino-Japanese roots, which have a restricted phonological structure (one or two moras long). At least half of Sino-Japanese terms are "binoms" consisting of two roots, but some roots can be used on their own as words (mononoms). A binom is written with two kanji (Chinese characters), one for each root.

Most Sino-Japanese lexemes do not undergo rendaku when used as the second element of a compound. However, a minority (around 20% of mononoms, and 10% of binoms) do show rendaku in at least some compounds. No criteria have been identified that predict with 100% accuracy when this occurs.

In terms of phonology, rendaku is blocked by Lyman's law and so never affects a binom where the second root starts with a voiced obstruent phoneme; e.g. in , in . Based on a study of how native speakers pronounced novel compounds, concluded that rendaku is statistically less likely to affect a Sino-Japanese binom where the first root ends in the moraic nasal and the second root end in a voiceless obstruent, although it is not fully blocked in this context (the study's observed rate of rendaku in this context was 1.3%, compared to Vance 1996's dictionary-based estimate of rendaku affecting 10% of all Sino-Japanese binoms).

Sino-Japanese roots that start with voiceless obstruents may have variant pronunciations starting with voiced obstruent phonemes for other reasons aside from rendaku.

One reason is the existence of different readings of Sino-Japanese roots, corresponding in general to different time periods of borrowing. Two of the most important types of reading are termed Go-on and Kan-on. Some (though not all) Kan-on readings starting with correspond regularly to Go-on readings starting with : these represent different adaptations of Early Middle Chinese voiced obstruent sounds, and so the existence of these alternative pronunciations is unrelated in origin to rendaku.

An example is the root 'ground, land', which has both a Kan-on pronunciation and a Go-on pronunciation . For this reason, the use of the voiced pronunciation in compounds such as cannot necessarily be attributed to rendaku, since the version of this root can also be found at the start of a word, e.g. in .

In addition, a minority of lexemes composed of two Sino-Japanese roots display a type of sequential voicing, affecting only roots in second position, that is indistinguishable in effect from rendaku, but probably has a distinct origin in terms of morphology. The relevant context is forms such as , which appears to display rendaku on its second element . In this case, voicing is hypothesized to be the result of the preceding Sino-Japanese root originally ending in a nasal sound, which caused the following consonant to become prenasalized and voiced. Prenasalization and voicing of a consonant after a nasal sound () is hypothesized to have been an active phonological rule up through Early Middle Japanese; in Late Middle Japanese, were denasalized and voicing after ceased to be automatic.

Gairaigo

''Gairaigo'' vocabulary is usually not affected by rendaku when it occurs as the second element of a compound, as illustrated by the contrast between 'glass shelf', from native Japanese 'shelf', and 'glass case', from foreign 'case': rendaku does not occur and is not expected to occur in the latter compound word, since its non-initial element belongings to foreign vocabulary. (In contrast, as shown by , the use of a ''gairaigo'' word as the first element of a compound does not prevent rendaku of a following native element.) Examples where rendaku affects a ''gairaigo'' element of a compound are highly exceptional.

Part of speech

Rendaku affects compounds involving various parts of speech, such as Noun + Verb, Adjective + Noun, Verb + Noun, Verb + Adjective; however, it is rare in compounds of the form Verb + Verb.

Reduplication

Rendaku is very frequent in words formed by reduplication, other than mimetic words, which are immune to rendaku.

Examples:
: (iteration)
:: ''hito'' + ''hito'' → ''hitobito'' ("person" + "person" → "people")
: (iteration)
:: ''toki'' + ''toki'' → ''tokidoki'' ("time" + "time" → "sometimes")

Semantics

''Rendaku'' tends not to occur in non-reduplicative compounds which have the semantic value of "X and Y" (so-called dvandva or copulative compounds), as exemplified by ''yama'' + ''kawa'' > ''yamakawa'' "mountains and rivers", as opposed to ''yama'' + ''kawa'' > ''yamagawa'' "mountain river".

Branching compounds

In compounds containing more than two elements (or compounds where one element is itself a compound), the branching structure of the compound may affect the application of rendaku. For example, , a compound of the morphemes "door" and "shelf", retains its initial voiceless when used as the second element of the compound "small cupboard". In examples like this, where the second element contains a voiced consonant as a result of rendaku, the lack of voicing at the start of the second element of the larger compound can potentially be explained as a consequence of Lyman's law.

proposed that rendaku is blocked in general in the left-branching elements of a right-branching compound, even in cases where Lyman's law does not apply. However, other linguists have questioned the validity or necessity of formulating such a constraint. The branching constraint is intended to explain the contrasting behavior of examples such as the following:
:''mon'' + 'shiro'' + ''chō''> ''monshirochō'', not *''monjirochō'' ("family crest" + white" + "butterfly"> " cabbage butterfly")
but
: 'o'' + ''shiro''+ ''washi'' > ''ojirowashi'' ( tail" + "white"+ "eagle" > "white-tailed eagle")

This constraint does not apply to all words where the second element is composed of more than one morpheme. As discussed above, rendaku can affect Sino-Japanese "binoms" composed of two Sino-Japanese roots. Assuming the branching constraint is valid, it is possible it does not prevent rendaku in that context because Sino-Japanese binoms do not have the morphological status of compound words in the context of rendaku. In any case, there seem to be some counterexamples to the branching constraint, such as 'big talk', from 'big' + , from ' bath' + 'carpet', or 'fire brigade for common people', from 'town' + , from 'fire' + 'to extinguish'. Other examples where rendaku appears to affect "multi-root" elements that are themselves composed of smaller elements (at least in terms of etymology) include the following:

* () 'tavern', from 'staying' + 'saké-shop', from 'saké-' + '-shop'
* () 'socializing with people', from 'person' + ()'socializing', from 'attaching' + 'matching'
* () 'skirmish', from 'small' + 'competition', from 'vying' + 'matching'
* () 'sole (fish)', from 'tongue' + 'flounder', from 'flat' + 'eye'

Otsu accounted for apparent counterexamples to the branching rule by postulating a distinction between "loose" and "strict" compounds. Per Otsu, loose compounds are formed in a productive manner, have a predictable meaning based on their components, and follow the general accentuation rules for compound words. Loose compounds are hypothesized to be immune to rendaku when used as the right-hand element of a larger compound, whereas "strict" compounds can undergo rendaku the same way as single morphemes. However, Vance 2022 argues it is not clear that these criteria can really be applied reliably to predict whether a compound is "loose" or "strict" for the purposes of rendaku.

The branching constraint analysis could be considered a violation of the Atom Condition, which states that "in lexical derivations from X, only features realized on X are accessible." An alternative view proposes that the process applies cyclically.
: 'nuri'' + ''hashi''+ ''ire'' > ''nuribashiire'' ( acquered chopstickcase, "case for lacquered chopsticks")
:''nuri'' + 'hashi'' + ''ire''> ''nurihashiire'' (lacquered hopstick case "lacquered case for chopsticks")
This could be seen as the voicing between hashi and ire staying unrealized but still activating Lyman's Law.

Ito and Mester 2003 proposed a third account distinct from both Otsu 1980's branching-based constraint and Ito and Mester 1986's cyclical account. This hypothesis holds that the relationship between branching and rendaku is not direct, but is mediated by prosodic structure: the lack of rendaku in right-branching compounds such as is analyzed as a consequence of coming at the start of a prosodic word. Per Ito and Mester 2007, whether a compound is treated as one or as multiple prosodic words is affected by the length of the second element of the compound: if the second element is longer than four moras (or two bimoraic feet), then the compound is required to have the prosody of a phrase rather than a single word.

Further considerations

In some cases, ''rendaku'' varies depending on syntax. For instance, the suffix , from , is pronounced as following the perfective verb, as in , but is pronounced as when following a noun, as in or, semantically differently – more concretely – .

Most Japanese family names are compounds, and rendaku may or may not affect the second element of a compound name. Some names are read in different ways for different people, and have both a reading with rendaku and one without, such as (which can be either or , among other readings).

Lexical propensity

It has been hypothesized that morphemes are inherently either more susceptible or more resistant to being voiced when used as the second element of a compound; in other words, that the propensity of a morpheme to undergo rendaku is lexically specified. Some morphemes show voicing in all compounds in which they occur. At the far end of the spectrum, a small percentage of morphemes appear to be immune to rendaku (for reasons not explained by the phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical-stratum factors described above that regularly block rendaku). Other morphemes are intermediate and undergo voicing in some but not all compounds. found that out of elements that occurred at least 5 times in second position in a database of frequent compound words, the most common behavior (42%) was to undergo voicing in all compounds, and each range of greater resistance to rendaku contained successively fewer elements (35% had voicing rates from 0.667 to 0.999; 12% had voicing rates from 0.334 to 0.666; 7% had voicing rates from 0.001 to 0.333, and 5% were never voiced).

suggests that the first element of compound words also has a lexically variable propensity to trigger rendaku, hypothesizing that rendaku occurs in words where the combination of these two voicing weights (the rendaku-triggering weight of the first element and the rendaku-undergoing weight of the second element) exceeds a threshold value, and fails to occur when this value falls below the threshold.

Word length

In some circumstances, rendaku appears to be affected by the length of a compound word, as measured in moras. Certain second elements that have a length of one or two moras tend to resist rendaku when combined with a first element that is one or two moras long. (A compound where both elements are short can be called a "short-short compound"). For example, occurs in a number of compounds without rendaku, such as and . However, these resistant elements undergo rendaku when combined with a first element that is more than two moras long, as in .

Avoidance of bVmV

Rendaku seems to be avoided in non-verbal elements that start with or + vowel + + vowel, such as , which has been explained as an effect of a preference against having homorganic consonants at the start of adjacent syllables: rendaku would replace or with , which is bilabial like . Rendaku is seen before vowel + + vowel in 'love letter' from 'letter': this is consistent with the hypothesis, since contains , which is already homorganic with (and so avoiding rendaku would not make any difference). (An alternative explanation supposes that , as well as other words that undergo rendaku to , starts with an underlying labial consonant that is phonologically distinct from the found at the start of lexemes that do not undergo rendaku.)

A study observed this tendency as an active factor affecting the frequency with which Japanese speakers preferred rendaku vs. non-rendaku variants of nonce words.

For whatever reason, this avoidance is not seen in verb roots (including deverbal nouns), which undergo rendaku even in cases such as 'to corrupt'.

No comparable effect is seen with other consonant sounds that undergo rendaku, since they retain the same place of articulation after the change.

Productivity

Although rendaku does not occur in all compounds, it is common and studies of Japanese native speakers show that it occurs often in newly formed compounds. It has been suggested that its productivity in new compounds is caused by analogy with existing compound words.

Acquisition by children

Some studies have examined the phonological development of rendaku. Studies from the late 1990s and early 2000s indicate that children under five and a half years old show limited use of rendaku in any context. The use of rendaku in established compounds becomes frequent by the age of six, but children below this age do not show reliable use of rendaku in unfamiliar compounds. Children over the age of six use rendaku frequently both in familiar and unfamiliar compounds.

Theoretical analysis

In linguistics, rendaku has been analyzed in terms of various phonological theories. It has been popular to identify Lyman's Law, the restriction against applying rendaku to a morpheme that already contains a voiced obstruent phoneme, as an example of a more general theoretical concept known as the obligatory contour principle (or "OCP" for short). This principle was originally formulated (by Leben 1973) to refer to the phonology of tone, and referred to a hypothesized constraint against having consecutive identical tones in the underlying representation of a morpheme. Later phonologists have interpreted the principle as a more general constraint, using it to refer also to bans on identical adjacent specifications of various non-tone features. Thus, Lyman's Law has been interpreted as an example where the obligatory contour principle (OCP) applies to voicing specifications and rules out multiple occurrences of voicing within a morpheme.

Rendaku in Tohoku dialects

In the Kahoku dialect of Tōhoku, the phonemes have voiced allophones when they come between voiced vowels, and the phonemes have prenasalized or nasal allophones when they come between vowels: for example, 'target' is pronounced (with a second consonant that is voiced but not prenasalized) whereas 'window' is pronounced (with both voicing and prenasalization of the second consonant). Thus, rendaku in this dialect, when it occurs, typically involves phonetic prenasalization of the second element of the compound, as is speculated to have been the case in prehistoric Japanese: e.g. 'beach" + 'chestnut' → 'clam'. However, the use of prenasalization at the start of the second element of a compound word is not uniform, and depending on the speakers and the words pronounced, significant variations were observed. There was a relationship between the rate of prenasalization and the speakers’ age: older individuals use prenasalized pronunciations at a higher rate than younger individuals. On the other hand, differences in the speakers’ gender and socioeconomic status did not affect the rate of prenasalization. It is speculated that dialect mixing with standard Japanese may have increased the use of pronunciations without prenasalization. In the case of , loss of prenasalization may also have additionally been facilitated by the fact that the resulting sound did not merge with any preexisting phoneme, since does not occur intervocalically in non-mimetic vocabulary (in contrast, in forms like e̝ɡɑmɨ the absence of prenasalization makes it possible to interpret the consonant as merely the voiced intervocalic allophone of , which would result in the phonemic transcription , with the same consonant phoneme as the independent word ).

A Tōhoku dialect spoken in Iwate Prefecture has been reported to have a phonotactic constraint prohibiting prenasalized obstruents from occurring in two successive syllables; this rule produces regular denasalization in 'ceremonial fire' as opposed to 'fireworks'., citing .

See also

*Consonant mutation
*Lenition
*Sandhi

Notes

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links

The Japanese Lexicon: A Rendaku Encyclopedia
– National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics

{{Japanese language

Japanese phonology
Japanese writing system terms