Phonology V: 撥音添加 & 撥音化

This lesson will focus on two phenomena in which the mora ん /N/ appears: 撥音添加 (the insertion of ん /N/) and 撥音化 (other morae turning into ん /N/).

撥音添加

It is often erroneously claimed that Japanese initially lacked ん /N/, but its use in the language is ancient nonetheless. It is a matter of dialect and various phonological circumstances which has led it to become such a heavily used sound today.

Nasal Consonant Gemination

The insertion of ん /N/ may occur in a multitude of words of native Japanese origin which possess a word-medial nasal consonant via gemination of said consonant.

This phenomenon tends to make the word sound casual. This is so much so that interjecting it in words meant to be formal will sound unnatural. A great example of this is 皆 meaning “everyone.” In isolation, it is usually pronounced as みんな with a geminate /n/, but in polite speech, only みなさん is allowed – NOT みんなさん.

撥音添加	許容範囲	撥音添加	許容範囲
同（おんな）じ	Colloquial	度（たんび）	Dialectal/Colloquial
儘（まんま）	Colloquial	鳶（とんび）	Standard
尖（とんが）る	Colloquial	くんだり	Standard
クマンバチ	Standard	黙（だんま）り	Standard
小ぢんまり	Standard	鉋（かんな）	Standard
すんで	Standard	すんごい	Emphatic
あんまり	Casual	真ん丸	Emphatic

Word Notes:
①くだり “down-slope/bound/hill/stream” and くんだり “as far as” are no longer synonymous. As for くんだり, it is a rather emphatic suffix that attaches to place names to show where one is going far off too.
②Whereas 黙（だま）り is used only as the 連用中止形 of the verb 黙る, 黙（だんま）り takes place as the verb’s true nominal form.
③鉋 (plane for cutting wood) derives from 金（かな）, but they are no longer the same morpheme.
④すんで derives from 既（すで） and may be found in the phrase すんでの所 (very nearly/just in time).
⑤Though 真ん丸 is an emphatic word, ん is not optional in the word.
⑥鳶 (“kite” as in the bird) is pronounced primarily as とんび, although とび is still recognized as a standard pronunciation. Both forms derive from the 連用形 of the verb 飛ぶ・跳ぶ (to fly/bounce).
⑦こぢんまり (snugly) is derived from 小締まり.
⑧クマバチ is still more common than クマンバチ.

Pre-Nasalization in Dialects

In Middle Japanese, all voiced consonants were pronounced with pre-nasalization. This is then rendered in modernized spellings with ん, producing word forms such as なんど・なんぞ for 等 as a prime example. In Modern Japanese, such pre-nasalization may still be heard pervasively in this same phonological environment, but mostly in Tohoku Dialects.

撥音化

There are several instances in which certain morae change into ん.

・撥音便
・の → ん
・む → ん
・ラ行音 → ん
・う → ん

撥音便

撥音便 refers to the 連用形 of 五段・四段 verbs ending in ぬ・ぶ・む going from に・び・み respectively to ん¹ when used with the particle て and the auxiliary ～た. This began in the 平安時代 and was here to stay by the 室町時代. It is during the 鎌倉時代 when ん is fully treated as a separate phoneme in Japanese.  

ナ行撥音便	死ぬ　→　死に　＋ た・て　＝　死んだ・死んで
バ行撥音便	呼ぶ → 呼び ＋ た・て ＝ 呼んだ・呼んで
マ行撥音便	読む → 読み ＋ た・て ＝ 読んだ・読んで

The Contraction of の → ん

The particle の has been subject to contraction since before the emergence of the moraic ん ever arrived. In fact, voicing in compounds (連濁) likely emerged from intervening の contracting to onset pre-nasalization then the voicing of consonants altogether. An example of this would be 水. 水 is believed to derive from みのつ (身の津) before contracting to to みづ. づ would have been pronounced as [ⁿd(z)].

Modern instances of the particle の contracting to ん, however, are typically treated as being indicative of casual, spoken Japanese.

Uncontracted Form	Contracted Form
～のだ	～んだ
ここのところ	ここんとこ
僕の家	僕んち
このような	こんな

The Contraction of む → ん

Before the Kana ん became designated as the sole spelling for /N/, む and ん could both be used to spell the morae /mu/ and /N/ interchangeably, making it rather hard to tell when and how any given instance gave way to /N/ if it were not for knowing which words ended up as one or the other as well as the original pronunciations before the emergence of /N/ entirely found in Old Japanese.

For instance, 女 (woman) is found written in Old Japanese as をむな, and since /N/ did not exist at this time, its pronunciation would have been [womuna]. Yet, in Modern Japanese, that pronunciation has since shifted to [onna], revealing that 撥音化 did occur in which む contracted to ん.

The most common instance of this particular form of 撥音化 may be found in the Classical Japanese grammar point ～むとす, which gave rise to ～ようとする, but only before first changing to ～んとす（る）, which is still found on occasion today.

世が滅びんとしている時にそれだけが頼みである。
When the world is about to end, that will be our sole hope.

The Contraction of ラ行音 → ん

R-sound morae also have a propensity of turning into ん.

ら →ん is very common when preceding the negative auxiliary ～ない.

わかんない！（→ わからない！）
I dunno!

The likelihood of this particular iteration of 撥音化 is higher in other dialects.

降んなけりゃ （→ 降らなければ）
If it doesn’t rain

り → ん is seen a lot in onomatopoeia, and without any negative stigma.

きちんと ≒ きっちり （Precisely)

る → ん is fairly common in casual, spoken language.

すんな！（→ するな）
Don’t do it!

寝んから（→ 寝るから）
Because I’ll be sleeping

This sound change is so pervasive, in fact, that it has resulted in 撥音添加 before the negative imperative な regardless of whether the verb ends in る.

叫ぶんな △ （→ 叫ぶな）
Don’t shout.

Though, acceptance of this is still rather low in the Greater Tokyo area.

れ → ん is generally deemed to be even more dialectical or rough. For instance, けんど is commonly found in Japanese dialects instead of けれど or けど. In 東京弁, you can find the れ in passives and the potential contracted to ん in very colloquial/rough speech. For instance, 来らんない. Though, the potential form competes with ら抜き. So, 来らんない is not as common as 来れない.

The Contraction of う → ん

In many dialects, word-initial う may undergo 撥音化.

んめー （→ うまい）
Delicious

Overview of how to pronounce ん

The Japanese syllabic structure is called moraic rather than syllabic largely due to the existence of ん /N/. However, there are some dialects in which ん is not moraic, forming CVC syllables like in Kagoshima Dialect. Putting this aside, /N/ still undergoes assimilation regardless of dialect.

Before bilabials	ん → [m]	3枚 = [sam̩mai]
Before n or z	ん → [n]	女 = [on̩na]
Before velars	ん → [ŋ]	珊瑚 (coral) ＝ [saŋ̩̩ŋo]
Before vowels, fricatives, and approximants	ん → [ĩ~ɯ̃]	単位 ＝ [taĩi]

Occasionally, the allophone [m] may also be heard in word-final position.

1. 撥音便 first appeared in the 平安時代 and had become fully grammaticalized in the spoken language by the 室町時代. It is during the 鎌倉時代 that ん became recognized by native speakers as being a separate phoneme.   ↩︎