The things you learn: Japanese rendaku and Lyman’s Law

[pne]

Japanese rendaku and Lyman’s Law (Ito & Mester 1986)

iro ‘color’, kamí ‘paper’, iro-gami ‘colored paper’
ike   hana (*pana) ‘flower’, ike-bana ‘flower arrangement’

Lyman’s Law: in Yamato vocabulary voiceless consonants freely combine while voiced do not: futa ‘lid’, fuda ‘sign’, buta ‘pig’, *buda

kámi+kaze -> kami-kaze, *kami-gaze ‘divine wind’
onna+kotoba -> onna-kotoba, *onna-gotoba ‘woman’s speech’

Essentially, what I gather is that if there is already a voiced obstruent (is that the same as a stop or plosive?) in the second word, the initial consonant will not undergo rendaku on combination. Never knew that before.

Comments

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that either -- I really need to read my Japanese linguistics book more thoroughly.

I think an obstruent is a stop or a fricative, but I'm not sure... Different people always use different terms, and I've been meaning for a long time to make up a chart showing the overlap.