The afterlife of morphemes: Rendaku and the search for ghosts in Japanese morphophonology

要旨

Rendaku, or sequential voicing in Japanese compounds, has been characterized in terms of autosegmental phonology as being the product of a floating morpheme whose only content is the feature [+voice]. This ‘ghost ’ either appears or does not (i.e., voicing occurs or does not) depending on a number of phonological and lexical circumstances. This report is a preliminary exploration of potential alternatives to the autosegmental account. Borrowing from Rosen (2003), Gordon (2005), and Martel (2009), the potential for prosodic boundaries and compound length as explaining rendaku is explored with a view toward incorporating the idea of perceptual salience into the dynamics of sequential voicing. While the present investigation falls short of complete exorcism of rendaku’s ghostly morpheme, directions for future research are suggested whereby such may eventually be possible.

主題