CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO RECENT PHONOLOGICAL CHANGES IN JAPANESE

Abstract

This study investigates innovative sound sequences in Japanese. A relatively large number of phonological changes have occurred in the short period of time since WWII, mainly due to an influx of loanwords from English. However, innovative sound sequences have not been accepted in Japanese uniformly. This fact raises two questions. Why are some innovative sound sequences fully accepted in Japanese while others are still foreignisms? Why are certain sound sequences acceptable in one situation, but not so in others?Previous studies on innovative sound sequences in modern standard Japanese have tried to solve these problems by establishing innovative lexical strata, such as "Assimilated Foreign" and "Unassimilated Foreign." However, this study found that the distribution of innovative sound sequences is much more complex than previously believed. Furthermore, in many cases, the acceptance of innovative sound sequences is word-by-word or speaker-by-speaker. This suggests that the cause of the distribution of innovative sound sequences in Japanese is better described as an intricate interaction among various extra-grammatical factors, such as processes of borrowing, speakers' socioeconomic status, influence of English education, acoustic and articulatory phonetics, the writing system, and historical linguistic factors.