= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on What's in a name? That which we call a rationalist… - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (88)
The suffix applies beyond mahou, though; e.g. mizutsukai for watercaster.
Also assorted words that are actually in dictionaries, e.g.: kozukai, janitor; zoutsukai, elephant trainer; ryoutoutsukai, two-sword fencer/expert in two fields; &c. Sounds like mahoutsukai and other related uses in fiction are much more common, though.
Also note that, as with kozukai, sometimes compound words in Japanese will voice the consonant of the first syllable of the second word. My knowledge of Japanese is not extensive enough to recall when this is done, however, especially in the case of mashing something onto the end of a loanword like ベイズ.
The voicing thing is known as rendaku. Generally it's a bit of a mystery when it will and will not happen. This thesis lists a bunch of proposed rules, two of which seem relevant:
Rendaku is favoured if the compound words are native-Japanese (yamatokotoba). This might be the reason for kozukai vs mahoutsukai, ko is native-Japanese and mahou is sino-Japanese. So by analogy, one would not expect voicing for beizutsukai.
Noun+Verb compounds exhibit rendaku if the noun is an "adverbial modifier" but none if it's a direct object. In "using magic" 魔法を使う magic is a direct object, so no voicing. On the other hand kozukai ('little servant'?) is an Adjective+Verb, which explains the voicing.
In any case, I guess the upshot is that we should expect beizutsukai, without rendaku,