The syllable inventory

The Japanese language has a fairly simple sound system compared to English. If we ignore the short vs. long vowel distinction (see Section 3.2), Japanese consists of twenty-six distinct consonants and five vowels. There are, however, dialectal variations; for example, the Yonaguni dialect in Okinawa has only three vowels, while the Nagoya dialect has eight vowels (Nakamoto 1981: 63). English has a much more complex sound system, consisting of twenty-four consonants and twenty vowels, with some dialectal variations (Ladefoged 1982: 24, 28). Consonants and vowels combine to form syllables. Due to the large number of consonant–vowel combinations, English speech sounds are usually not counted in syllabic terms. By contrast, the number of combinatory possibilities in Japanese is limited, and it is common practice to consider Japanese speech sounds as an inventory of syllables.

Of the twenty-six Japanese consonants, fifteen are plain and eleven palatalized. A palatalized consonant is articulated together with the tongue in high central position, like that in /i/. Consequently, the distinction between plain and palatalized consonants does not exist before /i/, e.g. /ki/ vs. /kyi/. The palatalized consonants occur with all other vowels. However, combination with /e/ is restricted, appearing only in borrowed foreign words (e.g. jetto ‘jet plane’) and expressivevocabulary, e.g. che! ‘shoot!’ (interjection).