Mora Obstruent Allomorphy in Sino-Japanese Morphemes

Modern Japanese exhibits apparently irregularallomorphic behaviour amongst a subset of bimoraic S[ino]-J[apanese] morphemes those with a final mora in -/ki/ whenappearing as the initial morpheme in a SJ bimorphemic compound whosesecond morpheme is /k/-initial. Detailed examination ofsynchronic and diachronic written corpora concludes that what isbeing witnessed is not irregularity as claimed in previous research but homomorphemic diffusion a process akin to lexicaldiffusion operating on a homomorphemic level. The independentstatus of homomorphemic diffusion is lent further weight by the phenomenon's conforming to Bybee's (2000 2001 2002)and Phillips' (1998 2001) theories that higher frequencylexemes (here homomorphs) tend to be affected earlier and morethoroughly in the case of reductive sound changes. When all theevidence here presented is examined homomorphs appear to bebehaving in lexical diffusionist terms just as individual lexemesor morphemes might be expected to.