Is there a better word for the gemination (plus つ-erasure) that happens with Jukugo words like 出社?

Japanese Language
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This morning I read this comment, and then I read this Wikipedia article which contains this text (emphasis added):

In Japanese phonology, sandhi is primarily exhibited in rendaku (consonant mutation from unvoiced to voiced when not word-initial, in some contexts) and conversion of つ or く (tsu, ku) to a geminate consonant (orthographically, the sokuon っ), both of which are reflected in spelling – indeed, the っ symbol for gemination is morphosyntactically derived from つ, and voicing is indicated by adding two dots as in か／が ka, ga, making the relation clear.

That was interesting to me, because I’d always wondered why the sokuon looked like a tsu. It was also confusing, since I’d never seen the mutation pattern they described (which explains the wonder), so I filed a mental note to keep an eye out for it. And only a few hours later, I got this word in a new lesson:

https://www.wanikani.com/vocabulary/出社

Which contains this helpful note, explaining the thing I was keeping an eye out for!

Just watch out for the しゅつ, which gets changed to しゅっ, as many つs do in this situation.

Confusion is gone!

But now I have a new wonder. Is there a better name for this phenomenon? I notice that rendaku is always called out (by name) in lessons when it frequently occurs. This new thing is noted to occur often, but it has no name!

As I understand it, rendaku is a name for the combination of (a) a mutation that occurs and (b) the conditions under which it occurs. The mutation itself a subset of “sandhi”, I’m not sure if the conditions are part of that.

IIUC, the つ → っ mutation includes both (a) the erasure of the tsu sound and (b) the lengthening of the following consonant. Part (b) is a subset of sandhi and can itself be described as a gemination, I think. But what do we call (a) plus (b), as well as the conditions under which the combo occurs (when a jukugo word has a tsu at the end of one component)?

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The small つ is called 促音 (そくおん), so you could potentially refer to its effect of going from しゅつ to しゅっ as 促音化 (そくおんか).

化 is a suffix that functions like “-ification” in English, making it into a noun that describes a process of making something. E.g. アニメ化 (making something into an anime)

However, in discussions with learners and generally talking about Japanese, I’ve never heard someone refer to this as anything other than gemination (or simply mentioning 促音, the symbol) before.

Here’s an NHK column that talks about 促音化

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I’ve always thought about it as ‘devoicing’. Wouldn’t ‘gemination’ mean that the vowel gets elongated? As I understand it any 3 kana combo should have the same length regardless if it contains つ or っ right?

I’m looking forward to learn why I’m wrong :sweat_smile:

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Doesn’t gemination always refer to an elongated consonant in any language?

Sure, but the idea is that the following consonant kind of jumped into the space that was previously the つ spot, no? It’s why we write it with a double consonant in romaji.

Devoicing is a different concept altogether, where a typically voiced (voiced as in, using the vocal cords) sound becomes… not.

Like how です (desu) can sound like “des”

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I’ve always thought about it as ‘devoicing’. Wouldn’t ‘gemination’ mean that the vowel gets elongated? As I understand it any 3 kana combo should have the same length regardless if it contains つ or っ right?

As a beginner (and the OP), here is my take. The example I gave above:

しゅつしゃ → しゅっしゃ

Yes, there are 3 morae (hopefully I’m using that word correctly) in each case. And two things are happening:

  1. The tsu sound “disappears” (guessing this is what you’re calling devoicing, but I don’t think that’s the right word to use)
  2. The sha sound becomes twice as long (stealing its extra mora from the disappeared tsu)

Gemination is the word for a consonant being lengthened (#2).

But I don’t think gemination requires (or even includes) the disappearance of a preceding sound (#1). Which, if I’m correct, means that gemination is NOT a complete description of this mutation (merely of half of it).

To be more clear, gemination alone would do: しゅつしゃ → しゅつっしゃ (the sha was geminated). But our mutation is more complex than that.

And the phenomenon itself is more complex than the mutation. It is “mutation-of-unknown-name occurring when a jukugo word has a tsu at the end of one component”. So I think both the mutation and the phenomenon need a name.

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You can have a geminate consonant (促音) where there was nothing replaced, as in a loanword like バット or ラッシュ, so I suppose that’s just 促音 and 出社 is an example of 促音化, like I was describing.

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Agreed, I’ve updated the title and OP to be a bit more precise about what’s happening. Thanks!

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Are you saying you don’t consider 促音化 as a description of つ (or く and other possible kana) being replaced with っ sufficient?

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I think it might be sufficient. Though maybe it doesn’t quite fully include in its definition the conditions under which it occurs. But if that is the only case under which it occurs, then maybe that inclusion is implicit.

I mostly updated the first post for posterity, since I was describing the problem wrong.

And also I was mostly curious if there was a well known name already in common usage, similar to rendaku. Sounds like maybe not? In which case I nominate your suggestion until a better one comes along. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I guess you’re saying that 促音化 might cover this, but that it might also cover other things, and so there could be a word for just 促音化 in jukugo?

I think things get kind of messy when looking at native Japanese words where things are more likely to just be referred to as 音変化 (おんへんか, sound change), even if it involved a つ getting converted to a っ. Generally speaking, the words we’re talking about, jukugo with 促音化, use borrowings from Chinese.

Linguists might have hyper-specified words for these situations to avoid overlapping definitions (just imagining something like 音読性促音化 vs. 訓読性促音化, no idea if such things exist), so I guess you’d have to dive into linguistics papers to be sure.

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Yeah, I guess. Or more precisely:

rendaku is to voicing of consonants
as
______ is to sokuonka

But, voiced consonants do occur under many different conditions, so maybe that specialized name is required there. If sokuonka only occurs in one condition, it might not need another name that also covers the condition.