Systematic Irregularity in Japanese Rendaku : How the grammar mediates patterned lexical exceptions

Abstract

Exceptions to Japanese rendaku voicing that are independent of Lyman's Law have usually been considered to be random and unsystematic. This article proposes that such exceptions are largely systematic and can be explained through lexical specification and Positional Markedness. Two main types of systematicity are examined: the clustering of blocking cases around particular lexical items, and a prosodic size effect, where compounds, with at least one constituent exceeding two moras, will disable blocking under most conditions. Lexical clustering is explained through lexical specification of features under Combinatorial Underspecification while the prosodic size effect is seen as an expression of Positional Markedness. It is argued that only in long compounds is the morpheme boundary at the edge of a ProsodicWord, a prosodically strong position that more freely permits the marked [sonorant, +voice] featural combination of rendaku voicing to occur.