Does 連声【れんじょう】 still happen in the modern language?


I remember reading that there's a historical process called 連声【れんじょう】 which
explains words like 天皇:

[code]

    　　天皇　　　　て **ん** ＋ **お** う　＝　て **んの** う
    　　云々　　　　う **ん** ＋ **う** ん　＝　う **んぬ** ん
    　　銀杏　　　　ぎ **ん** ＋ **あ** ん　＝　ぎ **んな** ん
    
[/code]

Does this ever happen in modern Japanese?

For example, does anyone ever pronounce 南欧 like `なんのう` rather than `なんおう`? Or
would that be very strange?




This is a really interesting question! According to
[wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Sandhi), 連声 is the term
for Japanese sandhi (a blanket term for any phonological process that occurs
across morpheme boundaries). I note this, because the examples in the question
all exhibit nasal gemination (doubling of an "n"-sound), which is a (more
commonly studied) subset of Japanese sandhi.

To address the second part first, I think current Japanese phonology would
only allow 南欧 to surface as /nãɴ.oː/. What happens is, the /a/ gets nasalized
cuz of the /n/ and becomes /ã/, and then the adjacent /n/ gets pushed back to
a uvular /ɴ/ (the "n" that occurs near the back of the throat). Although /ɴ/
could theoretically geminate, modern Japanese does not allow /ɴ/ to begin a
syllable, and would subsequently block the replacement of a second /ɴ/ with
/n/. So that's some phonological motivation behind why 南欧 would not be
pronounced as なんのう nowadays. (I lack the data to substantiate this intuition,
but I feel like certain speakers might geminate the nasal anyway, but it would
remain unperceived by native speakers.)

Having said that, the wiki page for 連声 gives modern examples, including

> ～であったら → ～ **だ** ったら  
>  私の家（うち） → わたし **ん** ち  
>  これは参った → こ **りゃ** 参った

But these are all examples of vowel deletion (or vowel reduction), rather than
that of nasal gemination (still all sandhi though). On the other hand, we also
have segment insertion:

> そういう事 → そう **ゆ** うこと

Where palatalization occurs to break up that long vowel cluster (/soːiu/ →
/soːjiu/).

From Wiki's article on [Japanese
phonology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Vowels), another
common strategy to break up long vowel clusters is to shift the pitch and
pauses, such as in 東欧を覆う(とうおうをおおう), which I suspect is a prominent feature of
a [scholarly paper I don't have access
to](http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110009593032/en).

All in all, I would say that sandhi is very much alive and well in modern
Japanese phonology, although perhaps not in the restricted sense of nasal
gemination.




This is a really interesting question! According to
[wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Sandhi), 連声 is the term
for Japanese sandhi (a blanket term for any phonological process that occurs
across morpheme boundaries). I note this, because the examples in the question
all exhibit nasal gemination (doubling of an "n"-sound), which is a (more
commonly studied) subset of Japanese sandhi.

To address the second part first, I think current Japanese phonology would
only allow 南欧 to surface as /nãɴ.oː/. What happens is, the /a/ gets nasalized
cuz of the /n/ and becomes /ã/, and then the adjacent /n/ gets pushed back to
a uvular /ɴ/ (the "n" that occurs near the back of the throat). Although /ɴ/
could theoretically geminate, modern Japanese does not allow /ɴ/ to begin a
syllable, and would subsequently block the replacement of a second /ɴ/ with
/n/. So that's some phonological motivation behind why 南欧 would not be
pronounced as なんのう nowadays. (I lack the data to substantiate this intuition,
but I feel like certain speakers might geminate the nasal anyway, but it would
remain unperceived by native speakers.)

Having said that, the wiki page for 連声 gives modern examples, including

> ～であったら → ～ **だ** ったら  
>  私の家（うち） → わたし **ん** ち  
>  これは参った → こ **りゃ** 参った

But these are all examples of vowel deletion (or vowel reduction), rather than
that of nasal gemination (still all sandhi though). On the other hand, we also
have segment insertion:

> そういう事 → そう **ゆ** うこと

Where palatalization occurs to break up that long vowel cluster (/soːiu/ →
/soːjiu/).

From Wiki's article on [Japanese
phonology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Vowels), another
common strategy to break up long vowel clusters is to shift the pitch and
pauses, such as in 東欧を覆う(とうおうをおおう), which I suspect is a prominent feature of
a [scholarly paper I don't have access
to](http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110009593032/en).

All in all, I would say that sandhi is very much alive and well in modern
Japanese phonology, although perhaps not in the restricted sense of nasal
gemination.

