Re: USAGE: More Japanese

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.