Japanese Phonology

Miyuki Takara speaks Japanese.

Japanese is a mora-timed pitch-accent language with a restrictive phonology.

Mora-timed languages consist of suprasegmental units called morae, where each mora takes about the same amount of time to pronounce. In Japanese, a vowel with an optionally preceding consonant takes up one mora, with the moraic /ɴ/ and geminate consonants adding an additional mora. Kana generally represent a single mora each.

Consonants

The phonemic inventory largely corresponds to the ten consonantal rows in the gojūon. The consonants have several allophones, which is reflected in Hepburn romanization.

Phonemic consonants in Tokyo dialect.

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d				k ɡ
Affricate			ts
Nasal	m	n					ɴ
Flap				ɽ
Fricative			s z					h
Approximant					j	w

• /p, t, tˢ, k/ are moderately aspirated
• /tˢ/ is geminated as /ttˢ/
• /b/ is typically realized as [b], but can become [β] or [v̠] in rapid speech.
• /ɡ/ often becomes [ɣ] intervocalically. It becomes [ŋ] medially in older speakers, with some exceptions.
• /ɽ/ is postalveolar medially. It is typically realized as an affricate [d̠^ɹ̝̆] initially and after /ɴ/. It may be postalveolar [l̠] in any position. Sometimes it may be approximant [ɹ].
• Phonemic /tˢ/ is normally realized as a cluster [ts].
• Some speakers realize /n/ as alveolar before /u/.
• /ɴ/, the moraic nasal, has variable realization. Word-finally, it is usually a uvular nasal consonant, or a close to close-mid nasal vowel. Before a vowel, approximant, /s/, or /h/, it is typically a close to close-mid nasal vowel. Before other consonants, it takes on the same place of articulation.
• /z/ is typically [^dz] initially and after /ɴ/.
• /h/ is realized as [ɸ] before /u/.
• /hh/ is intervocallically realized as [xx]. It is intervocallically realized as [ɸɸ] before /u/.
• /w/ has little to no rounding, except after /o/, and has no spreading. [ɰ].

Palatalization

All consonants are strongly palatalized before /i/ or /j/, and the latter is absorbed into the consonant.

• /Ci, Cj/ typically becomes [Cʲi, Cʲ].
• /tˢ/ is palatalized to [tɕ].
• /n/ is palatalized to [ɲ̟].
• /s, z/ are palatalized to [ɕ, ʑ].
• /z/ initially is palatalized to [^dʑ].
• /h, hh/ is palatalized to [ç, çç].

Vowels

Japanese has five vowels.

Phonemic vowels in Tokyo dialect.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

• /u/ resembles [ɯ]. It is compressed, unrounded, without spreading: narrowly [ü̜̞] or [ɯ̹̞̈]. It may be [ɨ] among younger speakers.
• /i, u/ are devoiced [i̥, u̥] between voiceless consonants. Preceding fricatives may entirely replace them.
• /su/ is often realized as [s]

Tone

Japanese is a pitch-accent language. The first mora of a word is either high or low pitch, and the second mora is the opposite pitch. High pitch is represented with an acute accent: /á/. A high mora within a word will make preceding morae in that word high-pitched.

Bibliography

• Okada, Hideo. “Japanese.” In Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press, 1999.