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The pronunciation of intervocalic ん is a topic by itself, with the surrounding
vowels tending to become nasalized, and ん itself maybe being pronounced as a
nasal vowel. But that's not what I'm asking about here.

In 千円{せんえん}, I sometimes hear a "y"-sound inserted after the first ん, although
I believe I don't pronounce it that way myself. On the other hand, in the city
name 田園調布{でんえんちょうふ}, I don't hear this "y". (I hear this word less often,
though).

At first, I thought it had something to do with whether the え came from ゑ or
not, but it seems both 円 and 園 used to be with ゑ.

Am I just imagining things, or are the cases where this "y"-sound is and is
not inserted? If so, what determines this?
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2012-02-17T03:50:31.670
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2012-09-22T06:57:15.570
2012-09-22T06:57:15.570
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phonology phonetics
"y"-sound insertion after intervocalic ん
**Update:** This might interest you: [On the Phonological Derivation and
Behavior of Nasal Glides](http://mitwpl.mit.edu/catalog/trig01) (R. L. Trigo
Ferre, 1988). _(PDF
available[here](http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/14408/20150378.pdf),
I assume legally.)_

> I claim that nasal ‘absorption’ occurs when the occlusion of a nasal stop is
> removed or weakened considerably **to the point where it is a glide**. A
> **nasal glide** without any place features, [N], is shown to derive by a
> process which simultaneously reduces obstruent stops to glottal stops in
> **Japanese** , Choctaw and Malay.

I do not have the background to evaluate the whole of Trigo Ferre's argument,
but my understanding from scanning the parts that relate to Japanese is that
she would argue that the "y" you are hearing _is_ the intervocalic /N/, or at
least all that remains of it (apart from some vowel nasalization) in the word
/seNeN/.

* * *

_Original comment:_ I am not an expert on Japanese phonetics, but [this
page](http://www.cjk.org/cjk/samples/jpd_e.htm) has some data on similar words
that suggests that **nasalization** is the key here (edit: which, of course,
you did bring up; but I'm suggesting that it is the cause of what you're
asking about).

  * 真一 /siNiti/ → [ɕiĩtɕi]
  * 本 /hoN/ → [hõ] or [hoɴ]
  * 翻案 /hoNaN/ → [hoãɴ]
  * 本意 /hoNi/ → [hõĩ]
  * 電話 /deNwa/ → [deẽwa]

Maybe what you are hearing is not a glide, but rather the onset/release of
nasalization (in [seẽɴ] or [seẽeɴ] or whatever).

Or, to restate sawa's suggestion in comments, it could be that the rule "/N/
turns into a nasalized vowel" is leading to a two-vowel sequence like [eẽ] or
[ẽe], and people are inserting a glide to keep the two vowels apart (prevent
"hiatus").

The difference between 千円 and 田園調布 could be due to accent as sawa says, or
other factors (e.g. 千円 is arguably two words, 田園 is not; 千円 is very common, 田園
is not; etc.)

Incidentally, although I am not a native speaker... when I listen closely to
myself saying 千円 what I hear is a narrowing (but not a stop!) in the uvular
region, which is then released back into something more like a regular [e],
and it is that release which sounds something like a "y". But it is definitely
distinct from the palatal [j] in, say, 矢 /ya/.
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2012-02-17T06:53:15.480
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2012-02-17T14:19:12.340
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I think a word like sen does have some nasalisation, but I also think there is
a bit of a velar approximant (a faint ng) at the end, and it's this slight
movement of the tongue that cause a subtle palatal y to come up, though not
the full one found in English.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-07-21T20:20:41.417
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answer