Re: Japanese voicing, and learning Mandarin and Portuguese (was Re: Keyboards)

Paul Bennett wrote:
> >> What have I not learned about etymological compounds in Japanese, btw?
> >> Why
> >> is it "hiragana" and "furigana" with a "ga", but "katakana" with a
> >> "ka"?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku
> >
>
> That link really raises more questions than it answers, but thanks for it
> anyway. It'll give me a decent place to start learning and investigating.
>
An interesting situation. I'd guess it's because the (original?) rule had a
NEGATIVE condition--

("$" = the morpheme boundary between elements of a compd.)
--------------------------------------------
COMPD. VOICING RULE
[-voi] --> [+voi] / $[+C, ___]
CONDITION: NOT IF / $___(...)[C +voi]...#

or rephrased: IFF all succeeding C in the lexeme are [-voi]
---------------------------------------------------------

This seems to require the speaker to examine the entire 2d lexeme before
deciding whether to voice or not-- probably an undue mental burden
especially if the governing vd.C is several syllables distant. No wonder
that kids learning to speak would be confused (and the wikipedia article
mentions that native speakers do indeed suffer confusion.) So nowadays
compds. with voicing have simply become lexicalized.

Was there ever, or is there now, any constraint in Japanese on lexemes with
consecutive syllables with vd. C ? e.g. /baga/, /guda/ etc? If so, that
might help explain it (though not cases of _V-vl-V-vd...).

And if perchance voicing takes place in a mixed bag of environments, that
might mean the rule must be written using braces { (curly brackets)-- and as
James McCawley always said (I paraphrase), "Curly brackets are evil" and
when you see them in a rule, you can safely bet there's something wrong.
:-)))

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