Rendaku

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Nigiri-Sushi : When combining the words nigiri ("ball") and sushi , the normally voiceless consonant / s / is pronounced voiced as / z / in Japanese: nigirizushi

Rendaku ( Japanese 連 濁 , composed of 連 , ren , “follow” and 濁 , daku , “become cloudy / voiced”) is a morphonological phenomenon in the Japanese language , in which the first consonant of the second component becomes voiced in compound words . For example, the word kami (“paper”) begins with the voiceless consonant / k /, but in a compound such as origami it changes to the voiced / g /. Because of the irregularities with which the phenomenon occurs or does not occur, it is not only difficult to learn Japanese as a foreign language, but sometimes also for native speakers, especially with rarely used words and especially proper names. For this reason, rendaku is also a frequent subject of study in linguistics . A condition that can be used in many cases and that will reliably suppress rendaku is Lyman's law . The etymology of the words involved also plays an important role.

In this article, the Hepburn system is used to translate Japanese into the Latin alphabet; for pronunciation, see Japanese language # Phonology , in particular / z / is spoken as a voiced / s / as in German "lawn" and / j / roughly as in English as "jeep".

Overview

Summary of the consonant changes
Unvoiced Voiced
k → G
s, sh → z, j
t, ch, ts → d, j, z
h, f → b

In the Japanese language, very similar to German, words can be put together to form compounds . Examples like natsu + yasumi → natsuyasumi ("summer" + "rest / leisure time" → "summer vacation") or ko + inu → koinu ("child" + "dog" → "puppy") show that the words are generally simple can be put together unchanged. However, if the second word begins with an unvoiced consonant, it is often replaced by a voiced one. In detail, the following cases with examples result:

  • / k / → / g /: yuki + kutsu → yukigutsu ("snow" + "shoes" → "snowshoes")
  • / s / → / z /: ama + sake → amazake ("sweet" + " sake " → " amazake ")
  • / sh / → / j /: takara + shima → takarajima ("treasure" + "island" → "treasure island")
  • / t / → / d /: me + tama → medama ("eye" + "ball" → "eyeball")
  • / ch / → / j /: hana + chi → hanaji ("nose" + "blood" → "nosebleed")
  • / ts / → / z /: tachi + tsukue → tachizukue ("standing" + "desk" → "standing desk")
  • / h / → / b /: su + hako → subako ("nest" + "box" → "nest box")
  • / f / → / b /: watashi + fune → watashibune ("bring over" + "ship" → "ferry")

In essence, the respective unvoiced consonant is replaced by its voiced version. The seemingly irregular change to / b / can be explained linguistically by the fact that in the ancient Japanese language , the oldest language level of Japanese, the modern consonants / h / and / f / were both pronounced as / p / for the written sources. The remaining irregularities arise from the transcription into the Latin alphabet; When using the Japanese syllabary scripts Hiragana or Katakana , the alternation results uniformly by adding two small lines in the top right, called Dakuten , to the character, for example

た, ち, つ, て, と → だ, ぢ, づ, で, ど     (ta, chi, tsu, te, to → da, ji, zu, de, do).

When writing words with Kanji , i.e. with characters taken from the Chinese script, Rendaku remains unmarked, i.e. In other words, the pronunciation cannot be deduced directly from the written word.

Conditions Affecting Rendaku

Lyman's Law

Lyman's law describes a phonological condition that reliably prevents rendaku. It says: If a word contains a voiced obstruent (/ g /, / z /, / j /, / d / or / b /), then in compounds the first consonant remains voiceless; no rendaku then occurs. For example, the word kabe ("wall") contains the voiced obstruent / b /, so according to Lyman's law in compound words like ishi + kabe → ishikabe ("stone" + "wall" → "stone wall") it always remains unchanged. Other examples of Lyman's law with other voiced obstruents are:

  • tsuno + tokage → tsunotokage ("horn" + "lizard" → "horn lizard"),
  • kita + kaze → kitakaze ("north" + "wind" → "north wind"),
  • ha + kujira → hakujira ("tooth" + "whale" → " toothed whale "),
  • tori + hada → torihada ("bird" + "skin" → " goose bumps ").

The tokage example also shows that the voiced obstruent, here / g /, does not necessarily have to be in the second syllable of the word in order to inhibit rendaku. Exceptions to Lyman's law are very rare; The few common examples include nawa + hashigo → nawabashigo (“rope” + “ladder” → “ rope ladder ”) and some other combinations with hashigo .

Lyman's Law is named after Benjamin Smith Lyman (1835–1920), who first described it in Western literature in 1894. However, it was previously discovered and formulated by Japanese linguists.

Word origin

The Japanese vocabulary can be divided into four groups according to its origin: Japanese hereditary words , loan words from Chinese , loan words from other languages ​​( Gairaigo ) and onomatopoeic words . Rendaku is essentially a phenomenon that affects Japanese hereditary words. So all examples mentioned so far in this article fall into this category. In the other three groups, rendaku occurs much less often - with decreasing probabilities. The following can be determined more precisely:

  • Chinese Loan Words: Due to the great influence of Chinese culture in East Asia since ancient times, the Japanese language contains many words that have been borrowed from Chinese. In more formal or technical texts in particular, the proportion of terms from this category is often high - roughly comparable to the role of foreign Latin words in German. Rendaku is rather rare in compound words with Chinese loanwords, but it does occur, especially in common combinations such as chū + koku → chūgoku ("middle" + "country" → "China") or kabushiki + kaisha → kabushikigaisha ("share" + "Company" → "Aktiengesellschaft").
  • Gairaigo: The Japanese language also uses numerous words from other languages, especially from English since the middle of the 20th century. Rendaku is very rare in this category, exceptions are mainly for words that have been adopted a long time ago and are well integrated, for example compounds with kappa ("raincoat"), which is derived from the Portuguese word capa .
  • Onomatopoeia: Japanese is rich in words that simulate sounds or, more generally, represent a property of objects or a feeling through their sound. With such onomatopoeic words, there is no rendaku. For example, in the case of reduplications such as tonton ("knocking"), kirakira ("sparkling") or fuwafuwa ("fluffy / flaky"), the second part of the word remains unchanged.

further criteria

As the previous examples show, in Japanese, as in German, the meaning of a compound A + B → AB results from the fact that the basic word B is more precisely defined by A (so-called determinative compound). Some compounds, on the other hand, have the meaning " A and B " (copulative compound or also called Dvandva ). In this second case, rendaku is regularly suppressed. A minimal example is yama + kawa → yamakawa ("mountain" + "river" → "mountain and river") in contrast to yamagawa ("mountain river").

The so-called branching condition is a criterion for rendaku for compounds made up of more than two words. These can be seen recursively as compositions of compound words. If the second component of a compound is put together itself ( A + BC → ABC ), then in its first part B Rendaku is suppressed. A minimal example is

nuri + kasa + ire → nurikasaire ("lacquer" + "umbrella" + "container" → "lacquer umbrella container / a lacquered container for umbrellas")

without rendaku, in contrast to nurigasaire ("lacquer umbrella container / a container for lacquered umbrellas").

Some words such as kita ("north"), hime ("princess") or katachi ("form") are completely immune to rendaku for reasons unknown so far, so they always remain unchanged when combined. There are also some prefixes that inhibit rendaku from the following word, for example ma- ("directly"), hatsu- ("first / beginning"), kata- ("one side"), old Japanese numerals such as hito- ("one") ), futa- (“two”), mi- (“three”) etc. or honorific prefixes such as o- , go- and mi- .

literature

  • James Low: Issues in Rendaku: Solving the Nasal Paradox and Reevaluating Current Theories of Sequential Voicing in Japanese . Pomona 2009 ( online [PDF; accessed September 26, 2018]).
  • Haruo Kubozono: Rendaku: Its domain and linguistic conditions . In: J. van de Weijer, K. Nanjo, T. Nishihara (Eds.): Voicing in Japanese . De Gruyter, Berlin December 2005 ( online [PDF; accessed on September 26, 2018]).
  • Mark Irwin: Rendaku Dampening and Prefixes . In: NINJAL Research Papers . tape 4 , 2012, p. 27-36 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b James Low: Issues in Rendaku: Solving the Nasal Paradox and Reevaluating Current Theories of Sequential Voicing in Japanese . Pomona 2009, p. 3-5 .
  2. ↑ Mark Irwin: Rendaku Dampening and Prefixes . In: NINJAL Research Papers . tape 4 , 2012, p. 28 .
  3. ↑ James Low: Issues in Rendaku: Solving the Nasal Paradox and Reevaluating Current Theories of Sequential Voicing in Japanese . Pomona 2009, p. 6 .
  4. ↑ Mark Irwin: Rendaku Dampening and Prefixes . In: NINJAL Research Papers . tape 4 , 2012, p. 28 .
  5. ↑ James Low: Issues in Rendaku: Solving the Nasal Paradox and Reevaluating Current Theories of Sequential Voicing in Japanese . Pomona 2009, p. 9-11 .
  6. ↑ a b Kirsten Dexter: Rendaku: Why Hito-Bito isn't Hito-Hito. In: Tofugo. August 14, 2018, accessed September 30, 2018 .
  7. ↑ James Low: Issues in Rendaku: Solving the Nasal Paradox and Reevaluating Current Theories of Sequential Voicing in Japanese . Pomona 2009, p. 7-8 .
  8. ↑ James Low: Issues in Rendaku: Solving the Nasal Paradox and Reevaluating Current Theories of Sequential Voicing in Japanese . Pomona 2009, p. 28 .
  9. ↑ Mark Irwin: Rendaku Dampening and Prefixes . In: NINJAL Research Papers . tape 4 , 2012, p. 27-36 .