--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
> I've often wondred why Japanese seems
> to
> > have such an 'off-kilter' phonology. It has /p/
> but no
> > /b/
>
> Eh? It has plenty of /b/'s! Banzai being a famous
> example. Other
> words, even excluding Sino-Japanese and loan words:
> oboeru (learn) and
> boku (I). /p/, however, *is* limited. In native
> words, it exists only
> in geminates and after the nasal, due to the fact
> that there was a sound
> change /p/ -> /P/ (and later -> /w/ or null
> word-medially or /h/
> elsewhere) except when geminated or preceded by a
> syllabic /n/, hence
> pairs like Nihon/Nippon or Sempai/Kouhai
> (Senior/Junior; -pai/-hai
> represents the same morpheme). This is also why /p/
> and /b/ are written
> in kana as modifications of /h/.
>
> Incidentally, Old Japanese had a "one voiced
> obstruent per word"
> restriction, which is why words that contain voicd
> obstruents are never
> subject to sequential voicing, and why voiced
> consonants are generally
> somewhat rare in native vocabulary.
>
Ahhh! That's probably why I thought ithad no 'b's.
Icouldn't think of any Japanese words that had them.
> > s and z but then an 'f' without a 'v'
>
> It doesn't really have /f/, tho. [P] is an
> allophone of /h/
>
True. But I can't think of any voiced equivalent to
it. I'm guessing it's that restriction again.
> > Arabic is a bit odd too. It has 'b', but no 'p'
>
> For a similar reason to Japanese's limitation on
> /p/, sound changes,
> specifically /p/ -> /f/
Interesting. Did tis happen in Spanish as well?
Travis
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