日本語五十音表の不整合性--「はぐれ音節」とハ行音音便規則から

Abstract

Some clear syllables (Seion) and voiced syllables (Dakuon) whose consonants have the same articulation points and manners of articulation are supposed to form systematic contrastive pairs of voiceless and voiced sounds, but the Sa-colmn and the Za- colmn as well as the Ha- colmn and the Ba- colmn do not seem to fall under this rule. Strictly speaking, the voiceless consonant that contrasts with the voiced consonant [z] is [ts] rather than [s], and the consonant that contrasts with the voiced consonant [b] is [p], the so-called “half-voiced consonant,” rather than voiceless [h].\r\nOur hypothesis is that the cause of the inconsistency appearing in the modern Japanese Syllabary Table can be made clear by means of the following procedures: 1) investigating the historic change of Japanese syllables, 2) comparing the phonological system of Japanese and that of Chinese, and 3) analyzing the rule of sequential voicing of Ha- colmn.\r\n And our study has proved that “chi”, “tsu”, “di”, “du”, “ji”, “hi” and “fu” are “rogue syllables” which have been forced out of the original Japanese Syllabary and in which only the “i” and “u” levels remain.