Haruo Kubozono (Kobe University): Rendaku: its domain and linguistic conditions

This short article reviews past works on rendaku with emphasis on its  domain and linguistic conditions. It begins with Fukuda's data on  specific language impairment which suggests that rendaku voicing falls  into two kinds, one is lexical(ized) and the other phonological (i.e.  productive). It then discusses various kinds of linguistic conditions  on rendaku with main focus on semantic and syntactic conditions. The  most important point is that these represent quite general constraints  that apply not simply to rendaku but also to some other independent  processes in Japanese and other languages. The paper also discusses  the domain of OCP (Lyman's Law) effects drawing some interesting data  from Sugito's experiments. Particularly interesting is the strange  behaviour of /r/, which patterns with voiced obstruents rather than  with approximants and voiceless obstruents.