The papers in this tightly focused collection all report recent research on aspects of rendaku (‘sequential voicing’), the well-known morphophonemic phenomenon in Japanese that affects initial consonants of non-initial elements in complex words (mostly compounds). The papers include… read more
Loanwords in Japanese is the first monograph in a Western language to offer a systematic and coherent overview of the vast number of words borrowed into Japanese since the mid-16th century. Its publication is timely given the fact that the loanword stratum’s recent exponential growth has given rise… read more
Of those studies which have examined rendaku from a statistical angle, most have been small-scale, employing restricted corpora or micro-databases and often focused on specific conditions. The lack of a large-scale corpus was the impetus behind the creation of the Rendaku Database, available online… read more
Rosen’s Rule states that rendaku is predictable when at least one element in a compound is three moras or longer. The rule is of importance for two reasons. Firstly, it adds further to the evidence affirming the role of the foot in Japanese. Secondly, the application of Rosen’s Rule allows us to flag… read more
Rendaku in many Tōhoku dialects is manifested in the form of prenasalized voicing, and this paper provides a case study of rendaku in the dialect of Kahoku-chō, Yamagata Prefecture. After describing prenasalized voicing and its relationship to rendaku, the paper reports the results of a study… read more
As rendaku is not entirely predictable, it is particularly difficult for second language learners of Japanese to master. To date, however, little research has been done to examine this problem. This study investigates the potential pedagogical value of Lyman’s Law, the observation that the second… read more
