Japanese phonology

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This article deals with the phonology (i.e. the sound system) of the Japanese language.

Consonants

• Voiceless stops /p, t, k/ are slightly aspirated: less aspirated than English stops, but more so than Spanish. Voiced stops /b, ɡ/ do not always achieve full occlusion, being sometimes realized as fricatives or approximants. Intervocalic /ɡ/ is realized as [ŋ] in many dialects, especially in eastern Japan.
• /t, d, n/ are laminal denti-alveolar (that is, the blade of the tongue contacts the back of the upper teeth and the front part of the alveolar ridge). Before /i/, these sounds are alveolo-palatal; before /u/ they are alveolar.
• Fricative [z, ʑ] are isophonemic to affricative [dz, dʑ]. [(d)z, (d)ʑ] are usually represented as /z/ though affricative pronunciation is rather prevalent.
• /s, z/ are laminal alveolar. Before /i/, these sounds are alveolo-palatal [ɕ, (d)ʑ].
• /r/ is an apical postalveolar flap undefined for lateralness. (That is, it is specified as neither a central nor a lateral flap, but may vary between the two.) It is similar to the Korean r. To an English speaker's ears, its pronunciation lies somewhere between a flapped r /ɾ/ (as in American English better and ladder), a flapped l, and a d, sounding most like d before /i/ and /j/ listen (help·info), and most like l before /o/ listen (help·info).
• The compressed velar /w͍/ is essentially a non-moraic version of the vowel /u͍/. It is not equivalent to a typical IPA [w] since it is pronounced with lip compression rather than rounding.
• [ɴ] is a moraic nasal, fully a stop before another stop, where it becomes homorganic with that consonant, but not achieving full occlusion before fricatives or between vowels, where it is realized as a nasal vowel. Word finally before a pause, it may be realized as a uvular nasal stop, a bilabial nasal stop, or as a nasal vowel. Some analyses treat this as an abstract archiphoneme "N"; some as a coda /n/.
• h is [ç] before /i/ listen (help·info), and [ɸ] before /u/ listen (help·info), coarticulated with the labial compression of that vowel.
• ː is realized as gemination on an obstruent, /pː/, /tː/, /sː/, etc. More abstract analyses treat it as a phoneme "Q", //Qp// = /pː/, as it transcribes a kana used for the first half of a geminate consonant.

Note that this table does not cover the consonants /g/, /d/, /z/, /b/, or /p/. Please see below for other details.

Vowels

Japanese has 5 vowels:

The Japanese vowels are pronounced as monophthongs, unlike in English; except for /u/, they are similar to their Spanish or Italian counterparts.

Vowels have a phonemic length distinction (i.e., short vs. long). Cf. contrasting pairs of words like ojisan /ozisaɴ/ "uncle" vs. ojiisan /oziisaɴ/ "grandfather", or tsuki /tuki/ "moon" vs. tsūki /tuuki/ "airflow".

In most phonological analyses, all vowels are treated as occurring with the time frame of one mora. Phonetically long vowels, then, are treated as a sequence of two identical vowels, i.e. ojiisan is /oziisaɴ/ not /oziːsaɴ/.

Within words and phrases, Japanese allows long sequences of phonetic vowels without intervening consonants, although the pitch accent and slight rhythm breaks help track the timing when the vowels are identical.

[hoo.o↓o.o]	hōō o (鳳凰を)	'phoenix (direct object)'
[to↑o.oo.o↓.o↑ou͍]	tōō o ōu (東欧を覆う)	'to cover Eastern Europe' (this artificial example is not something that would normally be said)

Phonological processes

Japanese contains a number of phonological processes which greatly alter the phonetic realization of consonants and vowels. A few are listed below.

Consonant processes

Weakening

Non-coronal voiced stops /b, ɡ/ between vowels may be weakened to fricatives, especially in fast and/or casual speech:

However, /ɡ/ is further complicated by its variant realization as a velar nasal [ŋ]. Standard Japanese speakers can be categorized into 3 groups (A, B, C), which will be explained below. If a speaker pronounces a given word consistently with the allophone [ŋ] (i.e. a B-speaker), that speaker will never have [ɣ] as an allophone in that same word. If a speaker varies between [ŋ] and [ɡ] (i.e. an A-speaker) or is generally consistent in using [ɡ], then the velar fricative [ɣ] is always another possible allophone in fast speech.

/ɡ/ may be weakened to nasal [ŋ] when it occurs within words — this includes not only between vowels but also between a vowel and a consonant. There is a fair amount of variation between speakers, however. Some, such as Vance (1987), have suggested that the variation follows social class; others, such as Akamatsu (1997), suggest that the variation follows age and geographic location. The generalized situation is as follows.

At the beginning of words:

• all present-day standard Japanese speakers generally use the stop [ɡ] at the beginning of words:  /ɡaijuu/ → [ɡaiju͍u͍] gaiyū 外遊 'overseas trip'   (but not *[ŋaiju͍u͍])

In the middle of simple words (i.e. non-compounds):

• A. majority of speakers uses either [ŋ] or [ɡ] in free variation:  /kaɡu/ → [kaŋu͍] or [kaɡu͍] kagu 家具 'furniture'
• B. minority of speakers consistently uses [ŋ]:  /kaɡu/ → [kaŋu͍]   (but not *[kaɡu͍])
• C. smaller minority of speakers in Kantō consistently uses [ɡ]:^[1]  /kaɡu/ → [kaɡu͍]   (but not *[kaŋu͍])

In the middle of compound words morpheme-initially:

• B-speakers mentioned directly above consistently use [ɡ].

So, for some speakers the following two words are a minimal pair while for others they are homophonous:

• sengo 1,005 (せんご) 'one thousand five' = [seŋɡo] for B-speakers
• sengo 戦後 (せんこ゜) 'postwar' = [seŋŋo] for B-speakers^[2]

To summarize using the example of hage はげ 'baldness':

• A-speakers: /haɡe/ → [haŋe] or [haɡe] or [haɣe]
• B-speakers: /haɡe/ → [haŋe]
• C-speakers: /haɡe/ → [haɡe] or [haɣe]

Palatalization and affrication

The palatals /i/ and /j/ palatalize the consonants they follow:

The coronals /s, z, n, t/ and glottal /h/ are affected as follows:

Of the allophones of /z/, the affricate [dʑ] is most common, especially at the beginning of utterances and after /ɴ/ (or /n/, depending on the analysis), while fricative [ʑ] may occur between vowels. Both sounds, however, are in free variation. The [n̠ʲ] is alveolopalatal, not a true palatal.

In the case of the /s/, /z/, and /t/, when followed by /j/, historically, the consonants were palatalized with /j/ merging into a single pronunciation. In modern Japanese, these are arguably separate phonemes, at least for the portion of the population that pronounces them distinctly in English borrowings.

The vowel /u/ also affects consonants that it follows:

Moraic nasal

Some analyses of Japanese treat the moraic nasal as an archiphoneme /N/. However, other, less abstract approaches take its uvular citation pronunciation as basic, or treat it as a regular coronal /n/. In any case, it undergoes a variety of assimilatory processes. Within words, it is variously:

• uvular [ɴ] at the end of utterances and in isolation.
• bilabial [m] before [p] and [b]; this pronunciation is also sometimes found at the end of utterances and in isolation. Singers are taught to pronounce all final and prevocalic instances of this sound as [m], which reflects its historical derivation.
• dental [n] before coronals [d] and [t]; never found utterance-finally.
• velar [ŋ] before [k] and [ɡ].
• [Ṽ] (a nasalized vowel) before vowels, approximants (/j/ and /w/), and fricatives (/s/, /z/, and /h/). Also found utterance-finally.

Some speakers produce /n/ before /z/, while others produce a nasalized vowel before /z/ (see Akamatsu 1997).

Moraic obstruent

In some analyses of Japanese, an archiphoneme /Q/ is posited. However, not all scholars agree that this is the best analysis. In those approaches that incorporate the moraic obstruent, it is said to completely assimilate to the following obstruent, resulting in a geminate (that is, double) consonant. The assimilated /Q/ remains unreleased and thus the geminates are phonetically long consonants. /Q/ does not occur before vowels or nasal consonants. This archiphoneme has a wide variety of phonetic realizations, for example:

Another analysis of Japanese dispenses with /Q/ and other archiphonemes entirely. In this approach, the words above are phonemicized as shown below:

/d, z/ neutralization

• The contrast between /d/ and /z/ is neutralized before /u/ and /i/. By convention, it is often assumed to be /z/, though some analyze it as /dz/, the voiced counterpart to /ts/.
• The above applies only to the phonology. The writing system preserves morphological distinctions, though spelling reform has eliminated historical distinctions: つづく[続く] /tuzuku/, いちづける[位置付ける] /itizukeru/ from //iti+tukeru//, おおづ[大津] /oozu/ from //oo+tu//,
• Among younger speakers, the contrast between /du/ and /zu/ has been reintroduced through loan words. One such example might be グッズ (less frequently グッヅ) for English goods /ɡudːzu/)^{[citation needed]}.

Vowel processes

Devoicing

Japanese vowels, especially /i/ and /u/, tend to be devoiced when between unvoiced consonants except when they are in accented moras. Additionally, /i/ and /u/ are optionally devoiced following a voiceless consonant and at the end of an utterance.

To a lesser extent /o/ (and even less commonly /a/) may devoice with the further requirement that there be two or more adjacent moras containing /o/.

Devoicing is common in even normal slow speech and is not restricted to only fast speech.

The common sentence-ending copula desu is pronounced [desu̥].

Gender roles also play a part: it is regarded as effeminate to pronounce devoiced vowels as voiced, particularly the terminal "u" as in "arimasu". Basilectic varieties of Japanese can sometimes be recognized by their hyper-devoicing, while in some Western dialects and some registers of formal speech, every vowel is pronounced.

Nasalization

Japanese vowels are slightly nasalized when adjacent to nasals /m, n/. Before the moraic nasal /ɴ/, vowels are heavily nasalized:

Glottal stop insertion

At the beginning and end of utterances, Japanese vowels may be preceded and followed by a glottal stop [ʔ], respectively. This is demonstrated below with the following words (as pronounced in isolation):

When an utterance-final word is uttered with emphasis, this glottal stop is plainly audible, and is often indicated in the writing system with a small letter tsu っ called a sokuon.

Moras and phonotactics

If considered as a system of moras instead of syllables (as the katakana and hiragana phonetic writing systems explicitly do), the sound structure is very simple: The language is made of moras, each with the same approximate time value and stress (stress, here, being correlated with pitch, not loudness). The Japanese mora may consist of either a vowel or one of the two moraic consonants, /N/ and /Q/. A vowel may be preceded by an optional (non-moraic) consonant, with or without a palatal glide /j/.

• In this table, the period represents a division between moras, rather than the more common usage of a division between syllables.

Consonantal moras are restricted from occurring word initially, though utterances starting with [n] are possible. Vowels may be long, and consonants may be geminate (doubled). Geminate consonants are limited to a sequence of /Q/ plus a voiceless obstruent, though some words are written with geminate voiced obstruents. In the analysis without archiphonemes, geminate clusters are simply two identical consonants, one after the other.

In the writing system, each kana corresponds to a mora. The moraic /Q/ (i.e., the first half of a geminate cluster) is indicated by a small "tsu" symbol called a sokuon (subscript ッ in katakana, or っ in hiragana). Long vowels are usually indicated in katakana by a long dash following the first vowel, as in sābisu サービス 'service'. The direction of this dash follows the direction of writing.

In English, stressed syllables in a word are pronounced louder, longer, and with higher pitch, while unstressed syllables are relatively shorter in duration. In Japanese, all moras are pronounced with equal length and loudness. Japanese is therefore said to be a mora-timed language.

On the other hand, since all syllables have equal stress in Japanese, some unstressed syllables in European languages tend to be inaudible to the Japanese ear, leading to confusion.

(Compare to the syllable system of Finnish and Italian.)

Prosody

Main article: Japanese pitch accent

Standard Japanese has a distinctive pitch accent system: a word can have one of its moras bearing an accent or not. An accented mora is pronounced with a relatively high tone and is followed by a drop in pitch. The various Japanese dialects have different accent patterns, and some exhibit more complex prosodic systems.

Notes

Bibliography

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