Introduction to Japanese Phonology, An

By Timothy J. Vance

Series: SUNY series in Linguistics
Paperback : 9780887063619, 226 pages, May 1989
Hardcover : 9780887063602, 226 pages, December 1986
Out of print (Paperback)
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Preface

1. Introduction
1. 1. Modern Standard Japanese
1. 2. Vocabulary Strata
1. 3. Orthography

2. Articulatory Setting
2. 1. Definition
2. 2. The Settings for English and Japanese

3. Vowels
3. 1. Short Vowles
3. 2. Long Vowels
3. 3. Nonidentical Vowel Sequences

4. Consonants
4. 1. Conservative and Innovating Varieties
4. 2. Stops
4. 3. Fricatives
4. 4. Affricates
4. 5. Nasals
4. 6.Glides
4. 7. The Liquid
4. 8. Palatalization and Consonant-Glide Sequences
4. 9. Voiced Labiodental Fricatives
4. 10. Glottal Stops

5. Mora Consonants
5. 1. The Mora Nasal
5. 2. The Mora Obstruent
5. 3 Mora Consonants in Generative Phonology

6. Vowel Devoicing
6. 1. High and Nonhigh Vowels
6. 2. Accent and Intonation
6. 3. Consonant Environment
6. 4. Consecutive Syllables
6. 5. Devoicing Versus Deletion

7. Syllables and Moras
7. 1. Historical Background
7. 2. Definitions
7. 3. Syllables, Moras, or Both?
7. 4. Overlong Syllables
7. 5. Nonidentical Vowel Sequences

8. Accent
8. 1. Previous Work
8. 2. High and Low Pitch
8. 3. Word Accent
8. 4. McCawley's Treatment
8. 5. Haraguchi's Treatment
8. 6 Longer Phrases
8. 7. Pitch Accent and Tone
8. 8 Other Topics

9. The Velar Nasal
9. 1. Historical Background
9. 2. Modern Standard Japanese
9. 3. Phonetic Motivation
9. 4. Medial Voiced Velar Stops
9. 5. Initial Velar Nasals
9. 6. Natural Process Versus Learned Rule
9. 7. Consequences for Natural Phonology

10. Sequential Voicing
10. 1. Historical Background
10. 2. Conditional Factors
10. 3. Fundamental Irregularity
10. 4. Variation

11. Other Alternations
11. 1. Morpheme-final Vowel Alterations
11. 2. /CV/~/Q/ Alterations in Sino-Japanese Morphemes
11. 3. Sino-Japanese Doublets

12. Verb Morphology
12. 1 Background
12. 2. Traditional Japanese Grammar
12. 3. An American Descriptivist Analysis
12. 4. A Generative Analysis
12. 5. Morphological Analysis and Phonotactics
12. 6. Experimental Evidence

References

Index

Description

This is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the modern Japanese sound system. It also serves as a useful reference on the structure of Japanese, since it presupposes only a basic background in linguistics. Among the topics discussed are the articulatory setting, phonemicization, vowel devoicing, syllables and moras, accent, the velar nasal, sequential voicing, other morphophonemic alternations, and verb morphology. The treatment draws on work by both Japanese and Western scholars. The book emphasizes phenomena that are likely to interest readers with a variety of theoretical perspectives.

Timothy J. Vance is Assistant Professor of Japanese at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.