Re: phonological markedness [was Re: Happy New Year (to some)]

I stand corrected. I thought it had been wi, but also thought it was wu.

While I hate having a short response, I can't really help it.

-Keith

> Axiem wrote:
> > It is now. Historically, however, it wasn't. Japanese is slowly losing
the
> > /w/ sound. They used to have "wu" and "we"
>
> Actually, /wu/ has never existed, at least, not during written history.
> /wi/ *did* exist, however.  And kana for /wi/ and /we/ were still used
> (altho pronounced /i/ and /e/) until the 1946 orthographic reform, as
> well as a much wider use of _wo_ (e.g., _otome_ was written as _wotome_)
>
> I've heard /wo/ for the particle, but I suspect that's pedantic.
>
> And, I think Japanese has stopped losing /w/.  /wi/-/i/ and /we/-/e/
> merged quite early on, as did /wo/ and /o/, yet /wa/ has survivedd.
>
> Quoting from _The Languages of Japan_
>
> "The early Heian period [794-1185] saw ... [the] merger of e and je, and
> o and wo ... this was followed by the merger of i and wi and e and we
> during the Kamakura period [1185-1331].  Entering the Edo period
> [1603-1868] zi merged with di and zu merged with du, resulting in the
> present-day number of sixty-two native syllables."
>
> So, the loss of wi, we, and wo were only a few centuries apart, while
> /wa/ has held its ground.  And, in fact, recent loans have reintroduced
> new /w/ syllables, written with katakana u and a little vowel.  Plus,
> I've heard things like [anewe:] for [aneue] (Elder sister), as well as
> [wi:] for [ui] (can't remember a specific example at the moment.  So, I
> rather suspect that Japanese is, in fact, *re*gaining /w/.
>
> > "kau"->"kawanai". "kau" was originally "kawu".
>
> Underlyingly, I would say it *is* /kawu/, which is simply realize as
> [kau].  For what its worth, as far as I know, it's never *actually* been
> [kawu] (altho its other stems were [kawi] and [kawe] - *[kawo] never
> existed as the fifth stem evolved fairly recently, during the Edo
> period, I believe.
>
> Historically, the -u verbs are derived from -pu, via the sound change
> /p/ -> /P/, which then, word-medially, frequently became /w/, and
> elsewhere /h/, except before /u/ where it kept the /P/ pronunciation
> (hence the use of _ha_ for the particle /wa/, and _he_ for /e/ (once
> /we/).
>