Re: [Lingo] 黒犬 vs. 黒い犬

[Jim Breen <jimbreen@example.com>]

On 1 September 2017 at 14:28, Stephen J. Turnbull
<turnbull.stephen.fw@example.com> wrote:
> My guess is that translate has a rule based on phonology.  (For those
> who don't know much technical linguistics, phonetics is stuff like
> "English doesn't have the glottal stop 'small tsu', Japanese does, but
> it doesn't have 'l'."  Phonology explains how sounds combine.  For
> example, in pluralization in English you "add s" in spelling, but in
> speech you say pigS, but foxeZ.  It's possible to say foxeS, consider
> exceSS, but you don't.)  In Japanese, ○くk- has a phonological rule
> that changes it to ○っk- (where "k-" indicates any of かきくけこ).
> So here こくけん -> こっけん.
>
> Why does translate apply this rule?  Well, I can't find 黒犬 in the
> dictionary (and in my IME くろいぬ -> 黒 + 犬, not 黒犬, of course an
> immediate confirmation enters the jukugo).  So it's probably not in
> Google's dictionary either.  Without the dictionary entry or the gobi
> い (ie, 黒い犬), translate appears to guess that it's an on-yomi word,
> reads the characters as こくけん, and then applies the phonological
> rule to get こっけん.

I agree with Steve's analysis.

> Well, Japanese do love their contractions, and here probably 黒犬 is a
> descriptive name for the dog, rather than just a description.  I would
> imagine that it would be read kun-yomi, as くろいぬ, and 白犬 as
> しろいぬ.  If it were supposed to be read くろいいぬ, I would think it
> would be written 黒い犬.

黒犬/くろいぬ can be found various places, including the Unidic morpheme
lexicon and Halpern's Japanese linguistics database. Googling for it
and looking at the images shows a squillion black dogs.
白犬 is in the same places, and is even in 広辞苑 meaning:
"毛色の白い犬。"

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University