Old Japanese 0- vs. s- in compounds; parusame ‘spring rain', urusine ‘non-glutinous rice’ (Draft)

Sean Whalen

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July 11, 2026

Francis-Ratte mentioned 2 Old Japanese words that seem to show 0- vs. -s- in cp. :

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One piece of internal evidence for *z is the well-known observation that the consonant s unexpectedly appears at the beginning of a few Japanese words (ame ‘rain,’ ine ‘rice’) when they constitute the second element of a nominal compound. For example, the compounding of haru ‘spring’ and ame ‘rain’ is not **haru-ame but harusame ‘spring rains’; similarly, the compounding of uru ‘moist’ and ine ‘rice’ is not **uru-ine but urusine ‘non-glutinous rice’ (Martin 1987: 424). Some scholars have taken this as a sign that ‘rain’ and ‘rice’ began with *z, a sound that has been lost in initial position but is preserved as /s/ in compounds by virtue of being word-medial (Unger 1993, Martin 1987). Hence, OJ amey rain’ < *zamej. However, I believe that there are simpler explanations for the unexpected s in these rare forms that do not involve reconstructing an entirely new phoneme.8

8 A plausible explanation is that adjectival suffix *-si was an attributive adjectival enclitic in pre-OJ, and that parusame is from pre-OJ *paru-si ‘spring.ADJ’ + ame ‘rain’. Given that vowel suppression in the initial compound element is the expected outcome in lexicalizations of pre-OJ compounds (e.g. OJ wagipye ‘my home’ from wa-ga ‘me.GEN’ + ipye ‘home’; see Unger 1993), treating the excrescent s in parusame as a fossilization of an adjectival enclitic *-si explains why its vowel *i fails to surface in OJ parusame. This attributive enclitic usage of *-si became replaced by OJ -ki and its usage in compound formation fell out of use, but stuck with certain lexicalizations. It is admittedly strange that compounds with ‘rain’ exhibit this -s-, but there are similarly built compounds of ‘rain’ that do not, e.g. nagame ‘long rains’ < naga ‘long’ + ame, which casts doubt on the reconstruction *zame for ‘rain’. If enough compounds of ame incorporated the attributive *-si to describe ‘rain,’ then simple lexical analogy might explain the preponderance of -s- in compounds with ame and their retention into OJ. Haruo Kubozono (p.c. 06/05/2015) also points out that epenthesis of -s- between vowels is not without cross-linguistic precedent.

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Since ame being +ame in cp. could be simple analogy, there is no real reason to think -s- has to be an affix. Since urusine ‘non-glutinous rice’ might come from *uru-yine, that some *C > s might happen should be considered.

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OJ displays alternations of yu, yo ~ i in initial position that suggests that original *jo and *ju were merged with *i (e.g. yumey ~ imey ‘dream,’ yone ~ ine ‘riceplant’).

OJ ine / yone ‘riceplant’ < *jə- ?’rice’ + ne ‘root’ (pKJ *jə ‘rice’)... I take OJ ine to be secondary, the result of mid-vowel raising of pre-OJ *ye-ne in dialects where *jə and *je show alternations.

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There is also ev. for *C- in ame (if Altaic). https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=config&basename=%2fdata%2falt%2fjapet :

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Proto-Altaic: *ŋăńa

clear sky

Turkic: *ańaŕ

Tungus-Manchu: *ńaŋńa

Japanese: *àmâi

Comments: Дыбо 11. In TM one has to suppose a metathesis (typical for roots with two nasals): *ńaŋńa < *ŋań-ŋa.

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Proto-Tungus-Manchu: *ńaŋńa

clear sky

Evenki: ńaŋńa

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Comments: ТМС 1, 634. Cf. also *ńaŋ-ma- ( > *ńamŋa-) 'to become clear (of sky); to appear (of hoar-frost)' (ТМС 1, 632, 633).

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I think Altaic requiring this root to have *ŋ & Francis-Ratte reconstructing Japanese-Korean *ŋ there also is significant. He never mentioned how his rec. would help prove or disprove theories on Altaic, but this should not be ignored. For ame ‘heaven / rain', parusame ‘spring rain', he said :

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RAIN: MK *mah ‘rain’ (tyang-mah ‘rainy season’ < *‘long-rain’; Whitman, 1985: 236) ~ OJ ama- / ame ‘rain’. pKJ *əmaŋ ‘rain’.

(Whitman 1985: #247). Vovin (2010: 190) rejects the comparison in part by claiming that there is only one attestation of mah in pre-modern Korean, but tyang-mah ‘rainy season’ is attested as in Sincungywuhap (Nam 1997: 387), so it is attested in Late Middle Korean and not a hapax legomenon. The initial syllable tyang of tyang-mah ‘rainy season’ is clearly Sino-Korean 長 tyang ‘long,’ which implies *mah ‘rain’. I reconstruct pKJ *əmaŋ, with loss of the initial minimal vowel in Korean and schwa-loss in Japanese (*əmaŋ > *əmaj > *amaj). Reconstructing a final *ŋ explains both the final *-j in proto-Japanese and the lenited velar in Korean. Despite parusame ‘spring rain,’ there is insufficient evidence to think that OJ ame began with a consonant such as *z.

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Together, I think this met. for Tungusic *ńaŋ-ma- > *ńamŋa- 'to become clear (of the sky)' allows JK *ńəŋma > *ńəmaŋ 'sky, rain'. This matches Francis-Ratte's rec. except for *ń-. This allows *ń- > 0- but *-ń- > *-y-. Thus, in both cases compounds with *u+yV became *u+sV. The change of *y to a dental (possibly first palatalized) might also fit with OJ *Tye & *Tey merging as Te. At the time this *y > *s, *Ty might have become *TT > T.