Vowel Length and Rendaku

要旨

Japanese inter-vocalic voicing (= rendaku) is a complicated problem with many exceptions, such as the one ordinarily called 'Lyman's Law'.This paper investigates WKH SRVVLELOLW\ WKDW YRZHO OHQJWK LQÀXHQFHV rendaku.We hypothesize that rendaku occurs after short vowels, as in the family name 小 川 [ogawa], but not after long vowels, as in the name 大 川 [okawa].We also test the claim that rendaku occurs rarely in non-native Sino-Japanese names.We conclude that these factors are tendencies of greater or lesser strength.

主題