Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 March 6

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March 6

Japanese

Could words らあっし rāssi, もんった montta and ねてぃん netēn be possible words in Japanese which follow phonotactical rules? Can Japanese have geminated consonants after long vowels or moraic nasal or can moraic nasal appear after long vowel? --40bus (talk) 19:31, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

1. For the first one, Japanese can and sometimes does have geminated consonants after long vowels, which can be seen in example sentences that have ーっ. I would break these down into three categories:

1. Words that have a geminating っ that are lengthened for emphasis, such as ぼーっと for ぼっと and ずーっと for ずっと.
2. Emphatic onomatopoeia, such as しーっ for "shhh", and くーっ as a sigh of relief.
3. In the context of sentences, words ending with a long vowel can get the particle って added on, although I wouldn't count this as a single word per se. The Jisho sentences earlier include example such as 「ラグビーって何人でするの？」 ("how many people do you need to play rugby?") and 「トミーっていい人ですね。」 ("Tommy's a nice guy, isn't he.")

GalacticShoe (talk) 20:27, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Note that the last category's long vowel doesn't need to be transcribed as ー (which I think is probably only used for an ending long vowel if the word is loaned.) With words like sansuu (算数), you can construct example sentences that also have a long vowel preceding gemination. The first two categories have long vowels that are explicitly added in for the aforementioned purposes of emphasis and onomatopoeia, which I imagine means that only ー is ever used there. GalacticShoe (talk) 20:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

2. もんった montta looks very strange to me. I think it contradicts Japanese phonotactics. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:44, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, and Jisho has no example sentences for んっ, so I imagine it indeed never occurs. GalacticShoe (talk) 20:50, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

/NQC/ is found in obaasankko ('grandma's boy/girl'), which Labrune (2012: 139) cites for being exceptional also in having /N/ accented. Nardog (talk) 00:10, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

3. That last one would actually be netin, ti (てぃ) having a short vowel sound analogous to that in chi (ち) but with a different initial t sound. But yes you can have a moraic nasal appear after a long vowel. Look no further than ティーン, which translates to (and sounds like) "teen." GalacticShoe (talk) 20:07, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I was about to post with the Japanese version of the name of the state of Maine. However, such "trimoraic syllables" seem to be disfavored in Japanese, and are not formed by means of ordinary morphological processes of adding Japanese suffixes onto Japanese stems... AnonMoos (talk) 20:21, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Personally I would read the vowel in メイン as a diphthong (me then in). If you're referring to the alternative form メーン, then I think that should count, although I agree that such cases are probably limited to loanwords. GalacticShoe (talk) 20:54, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

In Japanese, a diphthong is just as bimoraic as a long vowel, so it doesn't make any difference with respect to looking for trimoraic syllables, which I understood to be the purpose of 40bus's question. (By the way, what my message is now shown as replying to is very different from what I actually did reply to on 20:21, 6 March 2024...) AnonMoos (talk) 22:51, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

The kana and romaji of the last one don't match. Please clarify which one you meant. Nardog (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I think -ei- in practice often is read as -ē-, such as in keitai. (cell phone) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted that this is distinct from -ei-, since small i next to te indicates that it's a ti (note: not chi) sound. GalacticShoe (talk) 23:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Isn't the difference purely in the orthography of long vowels in native and loan words? I think the pronunciations of the syllables セー in セーラー服 and せい in せいらん are the same. Likewise for ヨー in ヨーガ and よう in ようぎ.  --Lambiam 23:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

ねてぃん would be netin, and netēn would be ねてーん. I don't understand what you're talking about. Nardog (talk) 00:03, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I mixed up てい and てぃ. As the article chōonpu states, the prolonged sound mark is usually not used in hiragana. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)