Generative treatments of rendaku and related issues

This paper provides an overview of how rendaku has been analyzed in the history of generative phonology, the mainstream framework of theoretical phonology. We begin with theoretical analyses of rendaku itself. We then discuss theoretical treatments of the major factors that affect its application. First, we discuss how Lyman’s Law has been treated in generative phonology. Here, we also deal with the issue of why Lyman’s Law ignores voicing on sonorants. Then we consider another restriction on rendaku, the Right-Branch Condition. The next section deals with other issues, including how theoretical phonology has dealt with the effect of lexical stratification on rendaku. The final section examines remaining questions and offers some concluding remarks.