Study the vowel structure of Japanese language

As is typical of moracounting languages, vowel length in Japanese is distinctive, and all five vowels occur in both long and short varieties. Long vowels are written as a vowel plus homorganic glide sequence (VV?), the vowel representing the syllable peak and the homorganic glide the offset e.g. /ki/ 'tree' – /kii?/ 'strange'; /me/ 'eye' – /mee?/ 'niece'; /obasan/ 'aunt' – /obaa?san/ 'grandmother'; /ku/ 'nine'

• kuu?/ 'emptiness'; and /ko/ 'child' – /koo?/ 'this way'. Although for convenience long vowels are here written as two segments there is evidence, both diachronic and synchronic, that they are in fact unitary. Historically long vowels have not undergone diphthongization as might be expected if they were structurally bipartite. What changes they have undergone e.g. raising [ææ?]> [ee?] have affected the long vowel as a whole. There is also evidence from synchronic speech processing. Martin (1974) cites a game called sakasakotoba 'upside-down words' (also the source of a special language referred to as yakuza kotoba 'gangster argot') which requires that the first and last portions of words be reversed, e.g. /kore/? /reko/. Let us see some examples involving long vowels and other syllables: /tai?ra/ 'Pr Name' /rai?ta/; /kappu/ 'cup' /pukka/; /ringo/ 'apple' /gonri/ ~ /gorin/; /gindza/ 'Ginza' /dzangi/ ~ /dzagin/; /byoo?bu/ 'screen' /bubyoo?/ ; and /tii?dzu/ 'cheese' /dzutii?/. Where long syllables are involved the syllable is divided if it contains a diphthong (example 1) or an offset nasal (examples 3 and 4). However, it is never divided if it contains a long vowel (examples 5 and 6). Long vowels may also arise on the surface in lenited speech due to the application of the process vowel coalescence to a sequence of identical vowels in adjacent syllables e.g. [suu.ri] 'vinegar vendor' (

A diphthong is a syllable nucleus with two vowel segments only one of which is syllabic. The non-syllabic may come from an adjoining consonant which is weakened e.g. z> y, b> w; or from an adjoining vowel which loses its syllabicity e.g. i> y, u> w. Diphthongs may also arise from simple vowels but such a development seems not to have occurred in Japanese. In on gliding diphthongs, the non-syllabic precedes the syllabic e.g. [ya, wa]. In off-gliding diphthongs, the non-syllabic follows the syllabic e.g. [ai?, au?]. In moracounting languages such as Japanese, an off-gliding diphthong constitutes a long (i.e. two-mora) syllable.

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