Tomoaki Takayama: Rendaku in loanwords


This paper presents some aspects of Sino-Japanese and its status in lexicon. 
It is well known that the sequential voicing of Sino-Japanese words is 
confined to more restricted part. That might be apparently similar to the 
situation of the other loanwords, e.g. kappa etymologically originated from 
Portuguese, which are regarded as having merged into the indigenous stratum 
Yamato. Sequential voicing, however, occurs in the inside of SJ, not as 
Yamato, from the phonotactic viewpoint. The SJ is approximately divided into 
two layers. One of them is, as it were, the vulgarized Sino-Japanese that can 
be the target of sequential voicing.

Another type of productive voicing is found in the morphemic level of SJ. 
It is not confined to the vulgarized layer, but this derivation is a kind of 
suffixation that need not have little or no recoverability to non-voiced 
form, rather than the typical sequential voicing.

The Sino-Japanese shows gradation pattern in its stratum in terms of the 
sequential voicing phenomenon, which is different from the Foreign stratum in 
Japanese. We also intend to present the historical background behind the 
status of SJ in lexicon.