Re: vowel harmony extension?

Nik Taylor wrote:

>"SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY" wrote:
> > The
> > first consonant of the second word becomes voiced. Thus, kami 'paper' but
> > origami; kana 'character' but hiragana; etc.
>
>Then why not *katagana?
Beats me.

Here are the facts as related by Shibatani:
1) It applies to the initial consonant in a form preceded by a prefix or a
compound element.
2) It does not occur if the second element contains a voiced obstruent
(Lyman's Law).
3) Foreign words resist voicing (e.g., Sino-Japanese words, most loans).
Words that are well integrated into Japanese are not treated as foreign.
(It is quite surprising what is considered "foreign" and what is not. Some
Portuguese words are fully integrated, while most Chinese borrowings are not).
4) It does not occur in dvandva compounds. For those who don't know what
those are: dvandva compounds are when you put two words together to mean X
and Y; e.g., jama 'mountain' + kawa 'river' = jawakawa 'mountain and
river'; kusa 'grass' + 'ki' = kusaki 'grass and trees'.
5) The segment that voices must be the lexical head of the constituent;
thus, nisezakuramatsuri 'fake-cherry festival' vs. nisesakuramatsuri 'fake
cherry-festival' (s vs. z)

Even when all of these conditions apply, voicing does not always occur.
Apparently even native Japanese speakers have a hard time figuring out when
to voice and when not to. You can find names that minimally differ in this
respect: Otaka vs. Odaka, Yamasaki vs. Yamazaki, Kashima vs. Kajima, etc.
The names are written with the same kanji, and it is impossible to predict
which is which based on writing alone.



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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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