Syllable Structure
The Old Japanese syllable was CV (consonant-vowel).
- A bare vowel does not occur except for word-initially.
- /r/ is not found word-initially (with the exception of two foreign loans: /rikizimahi1/ and /rokuro/).
- Voiced plosives do not occur word-initially.
Vowel elision occurred to prevent vowel clusters:
- Second vowel is dropped: /hanare/ + /iso1/ → /hanareso1/
- First vowel is dropped: /ara/ + /umi1/ → /arumi1/
- Two continuous vowels merge into a separate vowel: i1 + a → e1, a + i1→e2, o2 + i1→i2
- /s/ is inserted between the two vowels: /haru/ + /ame2/→/harusame2/ (It is possible that /ame2/ was once */same2/)
Read more about this topic: Old Japanese
Famous quotes containing the words syllable and/or structure:
“He generally added the syllable um to his words when he could,—as paddlum, etc.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)