Re: Phoneme winnowing continues

MJR = Mark J. Reed (me)
CG  = Christophe Grandsire (does that mean "grandpa" in French? :))

MJR> Just to make sure I have this right:
MJR> "Uchyuu Senkan Yamato" has seven syllables (U/chyuu/sen/kan/ya/ma/to)
MJR> and ten morae (U/chyu/u/se/n/ka/n/ya/ma/to).
MJR> Does this imply that the kana are not true syllabaries but actually
MJR> "moraries"?   I mean, the Hiragana transcription of the above
MJR> has ten symbols, not seven.

Let me correct myself - it has eleven syllables, because of the
palatalization in "uchyuu"; that word is written "u", "chi", small "yu",
"u".  So the symbol mapping is not one-to-one for either syllables or
morae, but it's closer to morae.

CG> The syllable itself doesn't have much of an existence in Japanese

Yeah, that was going to be my next question.  Of what use is the
classification of one- and two-morae chunks as "syllables"?   It seems
as though Japanese syllables are morphological rather than phonological.


CG> (it's only a "physical" property of normal connected speech, which
CG> truly pronounces long vowels as long vowels and final nasals as ends of
CG> syllable).

Okay, I'll buy the nasals, but I don't understand what you mean by
"truly pronounces long vowels as long vowels".  What is the phonetic
difference between [to:] and [too]?

And let's not forget gemination.  Doesn't it also create an additional mora,
so that "makka" has three morae rather than two?  Is there also a discernible
difference between [mAk:A] and [mAkkA]?

(What's the etymology of that word, anyway?  I thought it came from "ma" +
"aka", but if so, why isn't it "maaka"?)

-Mark

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