Abstract
This article reconsiders the nature and representation of the moraic nasal <N> in Japanese dialects, which is largely assumed to be a consonantal mora (Ito 1987, Vance 2008, Labrune 2008) or a variable segment (Yoshida S. 1996, 2003; Yoshida Y. 1999). I examine phonological processes and phonetic descriptions of the Tōkyō, Ōsaka and Kagoshima varieties of Japanese and show that previous representations do not capture all of the facts. I propose that N is best represented variously as a nasal consonant, a syllabic nasal or a nasal vowel depending on the dialect. I frame this account within the theory of Strict CV (Lowenstamm 1996) and I present new representations for N, taking into account segmental and prosodic behaviour of this segment. The overarching contribution is an analysis where the tonal status of N in Japanese dialects is directly derived from the status of nuclear positions that N is associated to or adjacent to, without reference to feature sensitive rules.
Highlights
The inability of these moras to serve as a full tone-bearing units (TBUs) is most clear when we look at loan words of four or more moras
I turn to the Kagoshima variety of Japanese (KJ), focusing on the dialect as spoken in Kagoshima city
I largely draw on description and data given in Kibe (1997a, b) and Uemura, Nobayashi & Hidaka (1997) for my discussion of syllable weakening23 and tonal processes as well as more focused studies, discussed shortly
Summary
Following the birth of autosegmental phonology (Goldsmith 1976), N has generally been considered an underspecified segment specified only for nasality and subject to assimilation (Ito 1987). It is viewed as the only other permitted coda besides the first half of a geminate. N is homorganic to a following consonant This can be exemplified with the word /hoN/ [hoN] ‘book’, and its nominative form [hoŋga] ‘book-NOM’. The varied character of N is supported by an examination of dialect data and phonological processes
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