Re: THEORY: Voiceless vowels [was Re: Missing Parts]

On Sat, 29 Jun 2002, Nik Taylor wrote:

> also, the devoicing is optional.  As I understand it, _su_ in such cases
> is often pronounced actually as a sort of moraic /s/, such that _desu_
> is something like [des=]
Yup. More interesting words are those like _sushi_. The pronunciation of
the vowels in this word is very free: either can be voiceless, both can be
voiceless, or both can be voiced.

In my very first phonology class (years ago now), the professor made a
cryptic comment that there is evidence that voicelessness in Japanese
vowels is becoming phonemic. I don't know what this evidence is though.

Marcus

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