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Re: USAGE: More Japanese

From:Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>
Date:Sunday, July 6, 2003, 2:52
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 05, 2003 at 03:41:23PM -0700, Garth Wallace wrote: > >>These are the ones I know about; am I missing any? >> >>>1. /hu/ is pronounced [fu] >> >>Actually, [p\u]. > > Thanks. > >>>2. /si/ is pronounced [Si] (/sj/ is [S]) >> >>I'd say there is no /si/, just /sa/ /su/ /se/ /so/ and /Sa/ /Si/ /Su/ >>/So/. At least in native words. Maybe you could say the /s/-/S/ >>distinction is neutralized before /i/. > > Well, that's what I meant. I think of it as a single phoneme > /s/, possibly palatalized before /a/,/o/, or /u/, and followed by > any of the five vowels, with these phonetic realizations: > > /sa/ [sa] > /sja/ [Sa] > /se/ [se] > /si/ [Si] > /so/ [so] > /sjo/ [So] > /su/ [su] > /sju/ [Su] > > Similarly for /ti/ -> [tSi], /tja/ -> [tSa], etc.
Hmm...that works. Not sure how it developed historically.