Alongside the “P sound” story of the previous article, another familiar phenomenon Ueda Kazutoshi took up in Kokugo no tame, Part 2 is “sokuon” — the sound written with the small tsu.
Why does “mochite” become “motte”?
Ueda gives these four examples.
| Original form | Present form |
|---|---|
| 持ちて (mochite) | もって (motte) |
| 行きて (ikite) | いって (itte) |
| 寄りて (yorite) | よって (yotte) |
| 一杯 (ichihai) | いっぱい (ippai) |
In each, the middle sound vanishes and turns into a small tsu. Ueda shows the mechanism by writing them out in roman letters.
| Word | Original form | Present form |
|---|---|---|
| 持ちて | mo-ti-te | mot-te |
| 行きて | i-ki-te | it-te |
| 寄りて | yo-ri-te | yot-te |
| 一杯 | i-ti-pai | ip-pai |
What is happening
Rewritten in roman letters, what happened comes into view.
- Mochite: mo-ti-te → mot-te. The vowel i of chi (ti) drops, and the remaining consonant t is assimilated to the following t.
- Ikite: i-ki-te → it-te. The k of ki became the same sound as the following t.
- Ippai: i-ti-pai → ip-pai. Ti became the same sound as the following p.
Ueda sums up the phenomenon like this. When a consonant (P, H, T, K, R, S, etc.), followed by an unaccented vowel, stands before a syllable beginning with P, H, T, K, or S, that earlier consonant is mostly assimilated to the following P, T, K, or S, urges on the vowel of the syllable one before it as a sokuon, and itself disappears.
That is, the small tsu can be seen as two of the very same consonant as the one that follows, doubled (the tt of mot-te, the pp of ip-pai).
The question Ueda left unanswered
There’s one more point worth noting in this paper. Ueda deliberately writes that the question — did sokuon exist in Japanese from high antiquity, or did it arise under the influence of Chinese learning (Sino-Japanese pronunciation)? — he leaves “as a separate matter, to a later study.” The paper’s stance is to look at the nature of the phenomenon from actual examples in front of him.
Ueda also touches on how to write sokuon, saying that writing tsu small and off to the side is probably the most convenient method today. This is the same way we write it now.
What is certain here, and what isn’t
What we saw in this article is the examples Ueda gave and his sorting of them. That “mochite → motte” can be explained by assimilation to the following consonant is an idea still widely used today as an account of Japanese sounds. The question of the origin of sokuon, on the other hand, Ueda himself leaves open.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Examples of sokuon | mochite → motte, ikite → itte, yorite → yotte, ichihai → ippai |
| Mechanism (Ueda’s sorting) | The earlier consonant assimilates to the following one, urges on the vowel of the earlier syllable, and itself vanishes |
| The nature of “tsu” | Two of the same consonant as the following one, doubled (mot-te, ip-pai) |
| The reserved question | Did sokuon exist from high antiquity, or come from Sino-Japanese influence? |
In a nutshell — the small tsu of motte arises when the vowel of chi drops and the remaining consonant turns into the same sound as the following consonant. Ueda Kazutoshi showed the mechanism in roman letters.