Hi Linda
I've also struggled with this in the past.
My personal feeling is that the best approach is 1. For example,
using romaji, 'san' meaning e.g. 'mountain' in 'Fuji-san' has one
syllable but two morae, 'sa' and 'n'.
'Yappari' (something like 'indeed') seems to have three syllables but
four morae, where one is a mora consonant, which is the result, or
perhaps the cause, of gemination. So the syllables are 'yap-pa-ri'
and the morae are 'ya-bilabial mora consonant-pa-ri'.
I've also seen this applied to English, by the way (but can't remember
the reference!) in order to explain heavy and light syllables, heavy
syllables having more than one mora. A long vowel or a diphthong, or
anything ending with a consonant, is bound to fall into this category.
I'd like to see what others think about this!
Jane*
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> I have three grad students (two Japanese and one not) who are
> struggling with the question of whether it makes sense to analyse
> Japanese in terms of syllables. Can I get your angle on this
> issue? Does any of the three following positions seem correct?
>
> 1. All languages can be analysed into phonetic syllables (so
> Japanese has them), but some languages (like Japanese) do not use
> them phonologically.
>
> 2. The syllable is a timing unit. Japanese does not use it as
> such, so it has no syllables in any meaningful way.
>
> 3. Japanese has some phonological processes which are sensitive to
> the syllable and some which are sensitive to the mora. Therefore
> it has both phonologically.
>
>
> If these are all wrong, what is right?
>
> Any comments (other than 'why worry about it?) would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Linda Shockey
> School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
> University of Reading
> Whiteknights, RG6 6AA
> 0118 - 378-7459
>
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Dr. J. E. Setter
Director, English Pronunciation Research Unit
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
The University of Reading
Whiteknights, PO Box 218
READING RG6 6AA UK
Tel: +44 (0)118 378 6089
Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3365
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/EPU
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/slals/setter.htm
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