Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

This article sketches some of the most important aspects of the sound pattern of Modern Japanese, focusing on segmental processes and restrictions. Even at this basic level of phonological organization, an empirically and conceptually adequate description requires explicit reference to the large-scale stratification of the Japanese lexicon into morphemes of different classes. A secondary purpose of this article is to show that a formal explication of the structure of the phonological lexicon - a complex network of partially overlapping phonological regularities of various degrees of generality - calls for significant emendation and extension of traditional views on morpheme classes and necessitates the development of a constraint-based model of lexical organization. One of the best-known aspects of the Japanese lexicon is its stratified structure, corresponding in kind to the distinction in English between the Germanic and the Latinate vocabulary. In Japanese, stratification is more elaborate in that four different morpheme classes have traditionally been distinguished. Yamato forms constitute the native stratum, corresponding to the Germanic/Anglo-Saxon vocabulary in English. Like the Latinate/Greek stratum in English, Sino-Japanese roots constitute the vast technical and learned vocabulary of the language. They are mostly bound forms and occur only compounded with other Sino-Japanese ... log in or subscribe to read full text