The diachronic origins of Lyman's Law: evidence from phonetics, dialectology and philology

Abstract

Modern Japanese has a set of morphophonemic alternations known collectively as rendaku that involve initial consonants in second elements of compounds, as in /jama+dera/ ‘mountain temple’ (cf. /tera/ ‘temple’). An alternating element like /tera/ ~ /dera/ has an initial voiced obstruent in its rendaku allomorph and an initial voiceless obstruent in its non-rendaku allomorph. Lyman's Law blocks rendaku in a second element containing a medial voiced obstruent. This paper gives three arguments that Lyman's Law originated as a constraint prohibiting prenasalisation in consecutive syllables. First, constraints on similar consonants in close proximity generally apply not to voicing but to features with phonetic cues that are more spread out, such as prenasalisation. Second, in some Japanese dialects with prenasalised voiced obstruents, rendaku cannot occur if it would result in adjacent syllables containing these marked consonants. Third, phonographically attested Old Japanese compounds are consistent with a constraint on adjacent syllables.

Phonology of proper names

“…Incidentally, the domain of Lyman's Law has changed over time. A common noun compound in Old Japanese did not undergo rendaku when it already had a (phonetically prenasalised) voiced obstruent in the last syllable of the first element (e.g., mî n du + töri → mî n du‐töri , * mî $$\underset{\_}{{}^{n}d}$$ u‐ $$\underset{\_}{{}^{\boldsymbol{n}}\boldsymbol{d}}$$ öri ‘water‐bird’; see Vance, 2005), preventing two (prenasalised) voiced obstruents from occurring within the whole word or more simply in consecutive syllables (see, e.g., Ramsey & Unger, 1972; Vance et al., 2021). This rendaku‐blocking phenomenon in Old Japanese is referred to as Strong Lyman's Law.…”

“…In some, rendaku may be attributed to post‐nasal voicing (but for a complication, see Vance, 2005, to appear) or promotion by one‐mora elements (see Irwin, 2016). It is also possible that word‐initial voiced obstruents do not count; (Strong) Lyman's Law originally targeted ‘prenasalised’ voiced obstruents in Old Japanese, but these segments were presumably absent or not prenasalised word‐initially (see Frellesvig, 2010, p. 43; Vance et al., 2021). Surnames may have retained this exemption from the law of word‐initial, non‐prenasalised voiced obstruents (also see, e.g., Do‐ b ashi ‘earthen‐bridge’, De‐ ɡ awa ‘outer‐river’), although this is insufficient as a synchronic explanation.…”

Morphological and phonological origins of Albanian nasals and its parallels with other laws

“…19 (59) Greek /tʰrík-s/ θρίξ 'hair'; /tríkʰ-es/ τρίχες 'hairs' (60) Sanskrit phal 'burst'; phalati (present), paphala (perfect) Other typological similarities include Lyman's Law in Japanese, which prevents sequential voicing in Japanese (rendaku). When two words are compounded, the initial voiceless consonant of the second element voices if it does not already contain a voiced obstruent (examples 61-62 taken from Vance et al 2021). In this regard, it is similar to Albanian's OCP constraint only taking effect within the domain of the morpheme.…”