Bimoraic Rhythm and the Nonfull Moras of Japanese: Reflections on Oral Language Instruction

Various treatments of Japanese rhythm are reviewed, & the determination by Sadamori Bekku & William J. Poser that Japanese has a fundamentally bimoraic structure is applied to clarify problems of language learning in both directions between Japanese & Brazilian Portuguese. Examples taken from E. T. Doi show that in the Japanese spoken by Brazilians, nasal moras are realized as coda nasals or nasalization of the preceding vowel, whereas consonantal moras are simply omitted; Portuguese coda consonants are realized by Japanese speakers as onsets to an epenthetic vowel or as syllabic coda elements. To ensure the durational character of the Japanese bimoraic unit & avoid the substitution of heavy syllables, instruction in Japanese as a foreign language needs to show that two moras constitute a rhythmic group in which a nonfull mora must always be in second position. 17 References. Adapted from the source document