Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Síða 293
3.3 Treatment of the nasal release of [t] and [d]
4 tokens: Árni, Birna, Arnar, Arnór
4 choices each: /-run-/, /-ruton-/, /-Qton-/, /-ruQton-/
nasal release of [t] and [d] occurs in English in words such as but-
ton, and garden, and involves a [t] (or [d]) sound, which is present
also in the spelling of the words. This is inserted when transliterat-
ed into Japanese, i.e. [bo ta n], [ɡa a de n]. In the Icelandic nasal
re lease, there is no ‘t’ in the spelling, even though the sound is sim-
ilar to the English examples. Whether Icelandic and Japanese
speak ers will insert [t] in the Japanese pronunciation of these
names or not remains to be seen. Since Japanese can have neither
a consonant cluster CC, nor a consonant in the syllable final C#,
and since V always follows C (except for geminate and syllabic
nasals), the insertion of [t] also means the insertion of an addition-
al vowel (normally [u] or [o]15), i.e. Birna → [bi ru to na]. In this
experiment, the existence of the geminate ‘ッ’ is taken into con-
sideration as well, thus giving four ways of pronouncing names
with a nasal release in Japanese.
results
There is a clear preference among Icelandic subjects not to insert
[t]. When [t] is inserted as a nasal release, a vowel [o] has to be
inserted following [t] since consonant clusters are not allowed in
Japanese. Icelandic speakers seem to avoid this double insertion.
On the other hand, Japanese speakers prefer /ton/ or /Qton/, both of
which involve inserted [t] and [o]. Of the four Japanese subjects
who chose the type without [t] like the Icelanders, two had never
been to Iceland and did not know the language. no Icelandic sub-
ject inserted a geminate, whereas three of the Japanese did.
KaOru uMEZaWa
293
15 according to the general transliteration rule, it is a vowel /u/ that is inserted after the con-
sonant. However, since [tu] and [du] do not exist in original Japanese sound syllabaries, the
vowel [o] is inserted in these instances, i.e. [to], and [do].
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