Japanese Morphophonemics 41 Japanese Morphophonemics Linguistic Inquiry Japanese Morphophonemics Markedness and Word Structure Monograph Forty-One Junko Ito and Armin Mester Markedness and Word Structure The sound pattern of Japanese, with its char- “Ito and Mester provide a penetrating analy- acteristic pitch accent system and rich seg- sis of Japanese compound voicing (rendaku) Junko Ito and Armin Mester mental alternations, has played an important and explore its implications for Optimality role in modern phonology, from structuralist Theory. Comprehensive in scope and elegant phonemics to current constraint-based theo- in presentation, it makes for a very impres- ries. In Japanese Morphophonemics Junko sive study.” Ito and Armin Mester provide the first book- —Michael Kenstowicz, Professor of Lin- length treatment of central issues in Japanese guistics, MIT phonology from the perspective of Optimal- ity Theory. “The empirical and theoretical depth of Ito In Optimality Theory (OT), a generative and Mester’s highly readable Japanese Mor- grammar (including its phonological compo- phophonemics are beautifully balanced, nent) is built directly on the often conflicting leading the reader to a rich, complete under- demands of different grammatical principles standing of very complex material. Further- Ito and Mester and incorporates a specific kind of optimiza- more, the work presents the broader context tion as the means of resolving these con- of both theory and data throughout, making flicts. OT offers a new perspective from which this a valuable reference book or teaching to view many of the processes, alternations, tool.” and generalizations that are the traditional sub- —Diana Archangeli, Professor of Linguistics, ject matter of phonology. Using the phonol- University of Arizona ogy of compounds as an analytical thread, Ito and Mester revisit central aspects of the sound “This book is the culmination of many years pattern of Japanese and submit them to the of research on Japanese consonantal mor- rigor of OT. In pursuing both well-known and phophonemics, by two scholars already fa- less-explored issues in this area, they show mous for their work in this area. The data are that an optimality-theoretic approach not only covered with unusual thoroughness and schol- provides new solutions to old puzzles but arly care, and the analyses have important also suggests interesting new questions for implications for current issues in phonologi- both descriptive work and theoretical research. cal theory: constraint conjunction, the nature Junko Ito and Armin Mester are Professors of faithfulness constraints, and the form of the of Linguistics at University of California, morphology-phonology interface.” Santa Cruz. —Bruce Hayes, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 41 The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu 0-262-59023-9 ,!7IA2G2-fjacdf!:t;K;k;K;k Japanese Morphophonemics Linguistic Inquiry Monographs Samuel Jay Keyser, general editor 6. Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding, Noam Chomsky 10. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations, Alec Marantz 12. Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation, Robert May 13. Barriers, Noam Chomsky 15. Japanese Tone Structure, Janet Pierrehumbert and Mary Beckman 16. Relativized Minimality, Luigi Rizzi 18. Argument Structure, Jane Grimshaw 19. Locality: A Theory and Some of Its Empirical Consequences, Maria Rita Manzini 20. Indefinites, Molly Diesing 21. Syntax of Scope, Joseph Aoun and Yen-hui Audrey Li 22. Morphology by Itself: Stems and Inflectional Classes, Mark Arono¤ 23. Thematic Structure in Syntax, Edwin Williams 24. Indices and Identity, Robert Fiengo and Robert May 25. The Antisymmetry of Syntax, Richard S. Kayne 26. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax–Lexical Semantics Interface, Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav 27. Lexico-Logical Form: A Radically Minimalist Theory, Michael Brody 28. The Architecture of the Language Faculty, Ray Jackendo¤ 29. Local Economy, Chris Collins 30. Surface Structure and Interpretation, Mark Steedman 31. Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations, Hisatsugu Kitahara 32. The Syntax of Nonfinite Complementation: An Economy Approach,Zˇ eljko Bosˇkovic´ 33. Prosody, Focus, and Word Order, Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 34. The Dependencies of Objects, Esther Torrego 35. Economy and Semantic Interpretation, Danny Fox 36. In the Event of Focus, Elena Herburger 37. Phrasal Movement and Its Kin, David Pesetsky 38. Dynamic Antisymmetry, Andrea Moro 39. Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure, Ken Hale and Samuel Jay Keyser 40. Essays on the Representational and Derivational Nature of Grammar: The Diversity of Wh-Constructions, Joseph Aoun and Yen-hui Audrey Li 41. Japanese Morphophonemics: Markedness and Word Structure, Junko Ito and Armin Mester Japanese Morphophonemics Junko Ito and Armin Mester Markedness and Word Structure The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 6 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Times New Roman on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong, and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ito, Junko. Japanese morphophonemics : markedness and word structure / Junko Ito and Armin Mester. p. cm. — (Linguistic inquiry monographs ; 41) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-09036-8 (hc. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-262-59023-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Japanese language—Morphophonemics. 2. Japanese language—Phonology. I. Mester, Armin. II. Title. III. Series. PL558.9.I76 2003 495.6015—dc21 2003045909 10987654321 Contents Series Foreword ix Acknowledgments xi Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Phonology of Voicing in Japanese: Alternations and Distributional Patterns 2 1.2 Overview of Theoretical Issues 4 1.3 Notation and Romanization 6 Chapter 2 Obligatory Contour Principle E¤ects and 2.1 Toward a New Understanding of Markedness Thresholds 13 Obligatory Contour Principle E¤ects 16 2.2 Local Constraint Conjunction 20 2.3 The Japanese Voicing Restriction 32 Chapter 3 Extended Obligatory Contour Principle 3.1 Geminate Dissimilation 47 E¤ects and Further Issues 45 3.2 Deaccentuation as Tonal Simplification 52 3.3 Further Issues in Constraint Conjunction 58 vi Contents Chapter 4 The Morphology and Phonology of 4.1 Rendaku as a Linking Morpheme 72 Compound Voicing 71 4.2 The Phonology of Compound Voicing 87 4.3 Further Issues 97 Chapter 5 Morphological and Phonological Domains 5.1 Domain Issues 102 101 5.2 The Domain of No-D2 107 5.3 Further Issues 118 Chapter 6 Rules and Exceptions 121 6.1 Harmonic Completeness, Universal and Language-Specific 122 2 6.2 No-D m and Its Activity in the Lexicon 131 6.3 No-NC and Its Activity in the Lexicon ˚ 136 6.4 Realize-Morpheme and the Distribution of Rendaku Voicing 142 6.5 The Overall Structure of the Phonological Lexicon 146 6.6 Concluding Remarks 153 Chapter 7 Voicing Faithfulness 155 7.1 A Voicing Asymmetry 156 7.2 Faithfulness Approaches to the Voicing Asymmetry 160 Contents vii 7.3 Comparing Theories of Ident 168 7.4 Sequential Markedness and Segmental Markedness 180 Chapter 8 Prosodic Anchoring 185 8.1 Rendaku Voicing in Complex Compounds 185 8.2 The Internal Prosodic Structure of Compounds 194 8.3 Initial Anchoring and Initial Markedness 201 8.4 Further Issues 212 Epilogue 229 Appendix 231 A.1 Compounds Exhibiting Rendaku Voicing 231 A.2 Compounds Exhibiting Lyman’s Law E¤ects 253 Notes 263 References 281 Index 295 Series Foreword We are pleased to present the forty-first in the series Linguistic Inquiry Monographs. These monographs present new and original research beyond the scope of the article. We hope they will benefit our field by bringing to it perspectives that will stimulate further research and insight. Originally published in limited edition, the Linguistic Inquiry Monographs are now more widely available. This change is due to the great interest engendered by the series and by the needs of a growing readership. The editors thank the readers for their support and welcome suggestions about future directions for the series. Samuel Jay Keyser for the Editorial Board Acknowledgments This research was partially supported by Faculty Senate grants from the University of California at Santa Cruz and by the National Science Foundation under grant SBR-9510868. The completion of the book was made possible by our year-long research sabbatical (spring 2001–winter 2002) in Kyoto, Japan, and at Kobe Uni- versity, which was funded by a Japan Foundation fellowship to the first author and a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to the sec- ond author. (The authors’ names appear in alphabetical order.) For making it pos- sible for us to focus on this project during 2001–2002, we would like to thank our colleagues in the Department of Linguistics at UC Santa Cruz; and for guidance and support throughout this project, we are indebted to Professors Shosuke Haraguchi and Osamu Fujimura. Part of this research was first presented at the 1996 Kobe Phonology Forum hosted by the Phonological Society of Japan (Ito and Mester 1996a) and at the 1996 Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL) at UC Santa Cruz. Later presenta-