Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Page 283

geminate consonants, and long vowels, illustrated by words such as
/hon/ book, /mor/ already, and /moQto/ more, where /n/ indicates
a moraic n, /r/ the second element of a bimoraic vowel, and /Q/ the
first element of a geminate consonant forming one mora; these three
are usually categorised as special moraic phonemes.5 In these cases
an Icelandic speaker would pronounce /hon/ with monosyllabic syl-
lable timing, while the word has two moras, /ho/ and /n/ in Japanese,
and is pronounced with two beats. an Icelandic speaker would like-
wise pronounce /mor/ [mo:] as one long syllable, but the word is
pronounced with two mora beats, i.e. /mo/ and /r/, in Japanese.
Similarly, /moQto/ would be a two-syllable word, /moQ/ and /to/ for
Icelandic speakers, but is pronounced with 3 moras by Japanese
speakers, i.e. /mo/ /Q/ /to/. Japanese furthermore tends to have bound-
aries between the nucleus and coda, whereas Icelandic prefers to set
boundaries between the onset and nucleus. Figure 1 shows the sylla-
ble and mora structure of the three Japanese words given above. In
the word /ho n/, Icelandic speakers tend to assume an underlying
boundary between onset /h/ and nucleus /o/, allowing /on/ to form
an integral rhyme. Japanese speakers, on the other hand, have an
underlying boundary between nucleus /o/ and coda /n/, as this is the
boundary of the two moras. again, the word /mor/ consists of two
moras, but one syllable. For Japanese speakers, the boundary in this
word will fall between /o/ and /r/, whereas for Icelandic speakers, it
is between /m/ and /o/. Finally, /mo Q to/ is a two syllable / three
mora word. Japanese speakers again divide the word according to
mora boundaries, in two places. Icelandic speakers intuit the division
according to syllables, in the place between onset and nucleus.
KaOru uMEZaWa
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5 窪薗晴夫、日本語の音声、東京：岩波書店、1999, pp. 147–153.
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