Why Linguists Obsess about Rendaku

October 27, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room), 1890 East-West Rd.

The term rendaku 茅鈧Ｃβ柯 (sometimes translated as 芒鈧搒equential voicing芒鈧) denotes a phenomenon that is familiar to anyone who speaks Japanese. A typical example occurs in the compound word me-dama莽鈥郝解 (芒鈧揺yeball芒鈧). The second element of this compound is pronounced tama as a word on its own, but the initial consonant is d rather than t in me-dama. There is no all-encompassing rule that predicts when rendaku occurs and when it does not, although there are various tendencies. On the other hand, rendaku cannot simply be a matter of memorizing which compound words have it and which do not, because it is productive, that is, it often applies to newly created compounds. It is precisely because of this complexity that linguists 茂卢聛nd rendaku intriguing.

During Dr. Vance's seven years on the research staff at NINJAL, he headed a collaborative project with the stated goal of publishing an encyclopedia-like work on rendaku. Alas, the project fell short of its goal, but it did produce two wide-ranging collections of articles, one in English (published by John Benjamins in 2016) and one in Japanese (to be published by Kaitakusha later this year). This presentation will use familiar examples from everyday life to introduce some of the mysteries of rendaku. It does not presuppose any background in linguistics, and it should appeal both to native speakers of Japanese and to non-native learners at all levels of pro茂卢聛ciency.


Event Sponsor
Center for Japanese Studies, Mānoa Campus

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(808) 956-2665, cjs@hawaii.edu,

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