Re: OT: Proving the rule (was Re: OT: Russian in ASCII?)

Joe wrote:
> But it does disprove the rule.  It proves that the rule does not hold
> for all cases, and is therefore wrong.
I'd always thought (before I learned the etymology, which now appears to
be possibly false) that it referred to an exception which, upon further
examination, actually turns out to be an example of a special case.  For
example, in Japanese there is a phenomenon wherein certain words, in
compounds, exhibit voicing of the initial segment, e.g., aki "autumn" +
tsuki (moon) -> akizuki ([dz] and [z] are in free variation).  One of
the rules for this phenomenon is that foreign words cannot be voiced.
However, there are a small number of exceptions, for example, iroha (an
old name for the kana, from the old order which began i ro ha) + karuta
(playing card, an early borrowing from Portuguese carta) -> irohagaruta
(cards with kana printed on them).  It's an exception to the rule,
however, upon further examination, it turns out that _karuta_ was simply
borrowed so long ago that it's been at least somewhat nativized, thus,
it confirms the validity of the rule, altho with a slight modification
to "words still perceived as foreign cannot be voiced"

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