The BG Language Creation Guide

Japanese Segment Inventory and Phonology

NB: this is not meant as a thorough or exhaustive description of Japanese phonetics or phonology. The data are simplified for pedagogical purposes. Place, manner and voicing of consonants are not given here.

Consonants

/r!/ = a voiced flap

Vowels

Japanese has contrastive vowel length: CF /obason/ 'aunt' /aba:san/ 'grandmother'

/i i:/
/e e:/
/a a:/
/u u:/
/o o:/

Syllable structure

• any consonant may begin a syllable.
• However, if two consonants are at the beginning of a syllable, the second one must be /j/.
• There are two kinds of consonants that may appear syllable-finally.
  • /n/ and
  • any consonant that is identical to the beginning of the next syllable. the two form a geminate.
  • Thus, these are legal words in Japanese: hon, hon-da, kit-te, nip-pon
  • these are not: hop, hod-na, kis-te kit-se

Phonology

• [t] becomes [tS] before [i] and [ts] before [u]. elsewhere it remains [t]
  • /tur!u/ [tsur!u]
  • /satu/ [satsu]
  • /ati/ [atSi]
  • /tiba/ [tSiba]
  • /taru/ [taru]
• [d] becomes [dZ] before [i] and remains [d] elsewhere
  • /omadi/ [omadZi]
• [s] becomes [S] before [i] and remains [s] elsewhere
  • /asi/ [aSi]
  • /samu/ [samu]
• [h] becomes [f] before [u] and remains [h] elsewhere
  • /huru/ [furu]
  • /hako/ [hako]