Phonemes that were not Written Distinctively in the Heian Period

Abstract

This study examines how linguistic elements that could not be expressed in hiragana and katakana were written in the Heian period, focusing on cases where people chose not to indicate certain distinctions in writing. Given that sei-daku consonants were not written distinctively, that geminate consonants and a part of moraic nasals were not notated, and that the notation of certain materials did not reflect kaiyō-on (CjV) or gōyō-on (CwV), it is presumed that these sound variants were perceived as prosodically conditioned.