Japanese Syllable Constraints

You want to learn Japanese. Or you are travelling to Japan and want to be able to say some words. Or you are just interested in languages. In any of these cases, you would want to learn about foreign words in Japanese.


Japanese Syllable Constraints

Consider Japanese syllable structure:

• The nucleus of a japanese syllable is a vowel or diphthong.
• The consonants that preceed the syllable nucleus are called onset.
• The consonants that follow the syllable nucleus are the coda.

Japanese is a very different language from Mandarin and Cantonese. Japanese is typologically described as agglutinative, while Mandarin and Cantonese are said to be isolating languages: Japanese makes extensive use of morphology for enconding grammatical information, while Mandarin and Cantonese use very little of it. Besides, Cantonese and Mandarin are cognate languages of the Sino-tibetan family, while Japonse belong to a different family, Japonic-Ryukyuan. Nevertheless, these three languages share similar constraints on syllabic structure, as it is shown in table 1, that shows the similarities and differences in Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese  syllable structure (cons: consonant; v: vowel; d: diphthong):

Table 1: syllabic constraints in Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese

These syllabic or phonotactic constraints are absent in other languages like English, that can have a higher range of consonants in the syllable's coda, and even allows consonant clusters in both onset and coda. Besides, English also displays a higher number of diphthongs. As a consecuence, English loans into Japanese has to adapt to Japanese phonotactic constraints. Happily, loans are easy to spot in Japanese because they are written in katagana. So, can you recognise the following japanese English loan words ? To simplifiy the task, they are written in Romanji :

1. Biru 
2. Toiletto
3. Miruku 
4. Makudonarudo
5. Guguru 
6. Kitto Katto
7. Dizunilando
8. Takushi go Hoteru
9. Sebun Elebun 
10. Basu 
11. Sutabakkusu
12. Sarada
13. Hanbaga 
14. Sandoitchi
15. Soseji 
16. Kohi 
17. Keki 
18. Aisukurimu 
19. Konbini 
20. Furaidopoteto
21. Esukareta 
22. Arukoru 
23. Bareboru 
24. Besuboru 
25. Basukettoboru  
26. Gorufu 

You can listen to these words in this funny famous song:

Solutions can be found here. 

In order to preserve english consonants in syllabic coda, an "u" sound can be added (biru). In more precise terms, the consonant in coda position in English is realised as another syllable in Japanese, formed by the english consonant in onset position, followed by its weakest vowel, "u". But it seems we can find some differences in the reconstruction of the vowel according to the place of articulation of the consonant:

• When the consonant is dental, the vowel of the added syllable is "o" (toiletto, kitto katto)
• When the consonant is labial-dental (f, as in gorufu), alvolar (basu, biru) or velar (miruku)
• When the consonant is palatal, "i" can be added (soseji, sandoitchi)
• In other cases, the choice of the vowel seems to be dependent on the preceeding vowel (sarada, keki)
• Note also that english schwa (ә) can be transposed as the vowel "a" (hambaga).

Interestingly, one english syllable can be rendered as three syllables in Japanese. This is the exemple of "narudo" in makuronarudo: the cluster "ld" in "nald" requires the addition of two vocalic nuclei, thus resulting in two more syllables. This is the case in consonant clusters in coda position, unless the cluster is formed by a nasal consonant (dizunilando), as well as in onset position (aisukurimu).

Being aware of this regularities can help you learn Japanese: you will be able, with some imagination, to recognise English word loans, and even to build a japanese word from English, assuming it is a loan word: hankachi, from English "handkerchief". Sometimes, like in this word, we will find a consonant cluster reduction (dk > k).

It does not seem easy, but it does seem fun.

I don't know what this means, but I know it is a foreign word