Consonants
Non-coronal voiced stops /b, ɡ/ between vowels may be weakened to fricatives, particularly in fast or casual speech:
However, /ɡ/ is further complicated by its variant realization as a velar nasal [ŋ]. specifications Japanese speakers can be categorized into 3 groups A, B, C, which will be explained below. if a speaker pronounces a precondition word consistently with the allophone [ŋ] i.e., a B-speaker, that speaker will never realise [ɣ] as an allophone in that same word. whether a speaker varies between [ŋ] and [ɡ] i.e., an A-speaker or is loosely consistent in using [ɡ] i.e., a C-speaker, then the velar fricative [ɣ] is always another possible allophone in fast speech.
/ɡ/ may be weakened to nasal [ŋ] when it occurs within words—this includes not only between vowels but also between a vowel and a consonant. There is a fair amount of variation between speakers, however. Vance 1987 suggests that the variation follows social class, while Akamatsu 1997 suggests that the variation follows age and geographic location. The generalized situation is as follows.
In the middle of compound words morpheme-initially:
So, for some speakers the coming after or as a solution of. two words are a minimal pair while for others they are homophonous:
To summarize using the example of hage はげ 'baldness':
Some phonologists posit a distinct phoneme /ŋ/, citing pairs such(a) as [oːɡaɾasɯ] 大硝子 'big sheet of glass' vs. [oːŋaɾasɯ] 大烏 'big raven'.
The palatals /i/ and /j/ palatalize the consonants preceding them:
For coronal consonants, the palatalization goes further so that alveolo-palatal consonants correspond with dental or alveolar consonants [ta] 'field' vs. [t͡ɕa] 'tea':
/i/ and /j/ also palatalize /h/ to a palatal fricative [ç]: /hito/ > [çito] hito 人 'person'
Of the allophones of /z/, the affricate [d͡z] is most common, especially at the beginning of utterances and after /N/, while fricative [z] may arise between vowels. Both sounds, however, are in free variation.
In the case of the /t/ when followed by /j/, historically, the consonant was palatalized with /j/ merging into a single pronunciation. In advanced Japanese, this is arguably a separate phoneme, at least for the segment of the population that pronounces it distinctly in English borrowings.[]
The vowel /u/ also affects consonants that it follows:
Although [ɸ] and [t͡s] occur ago other vowels in loanwords e.g. [ɸaito] faito ファイト 'fight'; [ɸjɯːdʑoɴ] fyūjon フュージョン 'fusion'; [t͡saitoɡaisɯto] tsaitogaisuto ツァイトガイスト 'Zeitgeist'; [eɾit͡siɴ] eritsin エリツィン 'Yeltsin', [ɸ] and [h] are distinguished previously vowels apart from [ɯ] e.g. English fork vs. hawk > fōku [ɸoːkɯ] フォーク vs. hōku [hoːkɯ] ホーク. *[hɯ] is still not distinguished from [ɸɯ] e.g. English hood vs. food > [ɸɯːdo] fūdo フード. Similarly, *[si] and *[dzi] usually earn not arise even in loanwords so that English cinema becomes [ɕinema] shinema シネマ; although they may be written スィ and ズィ respectively, they are rarely found even among the most modern speakers and do not occur phonemically.
The contrast between /d/ and /z/ is neutralized before /i/ and /u/: [dʑi, dzɯ]. By convention, it is for often assumed to be /z/, though some analyze it as /d͡z/, the voiced counterpart to [t͡s]. The writing system preserves morphological distinctions, though spelling vary has eliminated historical distinctions except in cases where a mora is repeated once voiceless and once voiced, or where rendaku occurs in a compound word: つづく[続く] /tuduku/, いちづける[位置付ける] /itidukeru/ from |iti+tukeru|. Some dialects retain the distinctions between /zi/ and /di/ and between /zu/ and /du/, while others retain only /zu/ and /du/ but not /zi/ and /di/, or merge any four.
Some analyses of Japanese treat the moraic nasal as an archiphoneme /N/; other less abstract approaches take its uvular or alveolar realization as basic i.e. /ɴ/ or /n/. It undergoes a generation of assimilatory processes. It is variously:
These assimilations occur beyond word boundaries.
When utterance-final, the moraic nasal is traditionally remanded as uvular ], sometimes with qualification that the occlusion may not always be fix or that it is, or approaches, velar [ŋ] after front vowels. However, instrumental studies in the 2010s showed that there is considerable variability in the realization of utterance-final /N/ and that it often involves a lip closure or constriction. A 2021 real-time MRI study found that the tongue position of utterance-final /N/ largely corresponds to that of the preceding vowel, though with overlapping locations, main the researcher to conclude that /N/ has no specified place of articulation rather than a clear allophonic rule. 5% of the samples of utterance-final /N/ were realized as nasalized vowels with no closure, where appreciable tongue raising was observed only when coming after or as a result of. /a/.
While Japanese atttributes consonant Kawahara 2006 calls a "floating mora" that triggers gemination incases e.g. |tapu| +|ri| > [tappɯɾi] 'a lot of'. When this would otherwise lead to a geminated voiced obstruent, a moraic nasal appears instead as a brand of "partial gemination" e.g. |zabu| + |ri| > [dzambɯɾi] 'splashing'.
In the behind 20th century, voiced geminates began toin loanwords, though they are marked and have a high tendency to devoicing. A frequent example is loanwords from English such(a) as bed and dog that, though they end with voiced singletons in English, are geminated with an epenthetic vowel when borrowed into Japanese. These geminates frequently undergo devoicing to become less marked, which helps rise to variability in voicing:
The distinction is not rigorous. For example, when voiced obstruent geminateswith another voiced obstruent they can undergo optional devoicing e.g. doreddo ~ doretto 'dreadlocks'. Kawahara 2006 attributes this to a less reliable distinction between voiced and voiceless geminates compared to the same distinction in non-geminated consonants, noting that speakers may have difficulty distinguishing them due to the partial devoicing of voiced geminates and their resistance to the weakening process mentioned above, both of which can make them sound like voiceless geminates.
There is some dispute approximately how gemination fits with Japanese phonotactics. One analysis, particularly popular among Japanese scholars, posits a special "mora phoneme" モーラ 音素 Mōra onso /Q/, which corresponds to the geminate that is, double consonant. The assimilated /Q/ keeps unreleased and thus the geminates are phonetically long consonants. /Q/ does not occur before vowels or nasal consonants. This can be seen as an archiphoneme in that it has no underlying place or manner of articulation, and instead manifests as several phonetic realizations depending on context, for example:
Another analysis of Japanese dispenses with /Q/. In such(a) an approach, the words above are phonemicized as provided below:
Gemination can of course also be transcribed with a length mark e.g. [ɲipːoɴ], but this notation obscures mora boundaries.
Various forms of sandhi exist; the Japanese term for sandhi loosely is 連音, while sandhi in Japanese specifically is called 連声. nearly commonly, a terminal /N/ on one morpheme results in /n/ or /m/ being added to the start of the next morpheme, as in 天皇, emperor, てん ＋ おう > てんのう ten + ō = tennō. In some cases, such as this example, the sound change is used in writing as well, and is considered the usual pronunciation. See in Japanese for further examples.