The motivation for this question is the phrase 本法廷 which I recently read.

Does ほん (本) work as a general purpose prefix? By this I mean can I look in the
dictionary and pick any noun and put 本 in front and have a grammatically
correct phrase?

When it acts as a prefix, can it always mean either 'this' or 'true' depending
on context?

If it is a prefix to a word starting with h-, is rendaku applied to make it
start with p-? For example is 本法廷 ほんほうてい or ほうぽうてい？
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-28T04:58:11.137
12967
2015-06-16T13:07:29.937
2015-06-16T13:07:29.937
1628
3221
question
syntax prefixes
Does 本 work as a general purpose prefix?
大辞泉 has an [entry](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/detail?p=%E6%9C%AC&stype=1&dtype=0)
for 本 as "general purpose prefix":

> ［接頭］名詞に付く。
>
> １ 今、現に問題にしているもの、当面のものであることを表す。この。「―議案」「―大会」
>
> ２ それがいま話している自分にかかわるものであることを表す。「―大臣としては」
>
> ３ きょうの。本日の。「―未明」

That is, 本 means either (1) "now/current", (2) something related to _oneself_
, (3) something related to _today_.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-28T09:10:27.540
12968
2013-09-28T09:10:27.540
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
1628
12967
answer
You seem to be conflating two grammatically different functions.

本 as a single word can be used directly in front of a noun to mean something
along the line of "this X we're talking about," where X is the noun 本
precedes. I think this use is what you mean by a "general purpose prefix" that
means "this."

The character 本 can also be part of a single word. If you look up many stand-
alone words with 本 in them, you'll notice that there are certain patterns in
meaning. If you analyze these words as systematic compounds, one of the
hypothetical meanings the character 本 systematically contributes can be
translated as "genuine," "true," "real," or something along those lines. (To
be clear, the sense of "this" is also an example of various possible senses in
some kanji compounds. The point is that there are two different things going
on in OP's question; 本 can be a stand-alone word with the "this" sense but can
also simply be part of a word, where the semantics can be sort of predicable
due to the fact that words with 本 tends to have shared senses. The shared
senses can be "genuine," "true," etc. or "this" or something else like
"book".)

These two uses of 本 are different in that the former is simply a word that
always precedes a noun due to its semantics while the latter is part of a
single word that can't be divided any further. In fact, the former is a full-
fledged single word 本 that has its own pitch accent, which is ほん{HL}. This
pitch pattern does not change regardless of what noun follows it. But the
latter does not have a defined pitch pattern in the sense that the whole
combination gets its own pattern instead, e.g.,

本マグロ = ほんまぐろ{LHHLL} and

本わさび = ほんわさび{LHHLL}.

As you can tell from the fact that マグロ as a single word has a different pitch
pattern (まぐろ{LHH}), 本X of this kind is a stand-alone, single word on its own.

Now, because the former usage is simply a word on its own, grammatically
speaking, you can put pretty much any noun after it as long as it's
semantically valid, although there are many words that just wouldn't appear
after 本 of this use in normal context. But the latter use is valid only when
it forms a legitimate noun when combined with the following word. Of course,
you can coin a new noun by attaching 本 on the spot if you want. And if it
makes sense and sounds great in the situation you are in, there's nothing
wrong about it. Your new word may catch on among other Japanese speakers. Lots
of words have been coined this way anyway. But you should note that there is a
difference between the former use as a stand-alone word and the latter use as
a "prefix" within a single word.

You can still say that they're both prefixes within a word or both stand-alone
words, or even something different, depending on how you define "prefix,"
"word," and other grammatical terms. But there is a huge difference in
versatility because the former behaves just like any other single word while
本X of the latter kind is valid only if it forms a real word or the whole
"sounds legit" as a single word.

As for sound changes, the former does not introduce the h -> p/b change. The
latter tends to cause this sound change.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-30T23:16:36.247
12985
2013-10-02T07:38:41.477
2013-10-02T07:38:41.477
12967
answer