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Is it known why a さかや normally has a か, rather than a け like in さけ?

Are there many other -や constructions for stores that change the spelling of the word added to?

Andrew Grimm
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(Especially in the ancient times,) there were/are bound morphemes (morphemes that cannot be used in isolation as a word) that end with the vowel a. The a at the end of these morphemes cannot appear at a word boundary. These forms are known as 被覆形.

saka- (as in 酒)
ama- (as in 雨)
puna- (as in 船)
ma- (as in 目)

When they are used as the first component of a compound noun, the a-ending is rescued by being attached to the second component:

sakaya (酒屋), sakagura (酒蔵), sakadaru (酒樽), sakamori (酒盛り), sakazuki (盃)
amaoto (雨音), amagasa (雨傘), amagappa (雨合羽), amayadori (雨宿り)
funatsukiba (船着き場), funanori (船乗り), funazumi (船積み), funabashi (船橋), funayoi (船酔い)
mabuta (目蓋), manako (眼)

These morphemes cannot be used in isolation, but there were ways to modify them so that they can be used by themselves. One such way was to attach the vowel i (上代特殊仮名遣い乙類イ) after it, which may be either an epenthetic vowel or a derivational morpheme that derives a noun (this part may be controversial). When such vowel attaches, the a+i sequence became e due to a phonological rule:

a-i → e
saka-i → sake (酒)
ama-i → ame (雨)
puna-i → fune (船)
ma-i → me (目)

These forms derived in this way are called 露出形.

[A related question][1]
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  • So anything where the original noun doesn't end with an `e` sound should be fairly safe? – Andrew Grimm Oct 23 '11 at 08:34
  • "Safe" as in less likely to behave unexpectedly. – Andrew Grimm Oct 23 '11 at 08:55
  • If I know a noun has an equivalent foo-や form, then unless the noun ends with an "e" sound, I don't have to worry about whether I need to modify the original word? – Andrew Grimm Oct 25 '11 at 21:38
  • I am still not sure about your question, but do you mean: you know a word of a `foo-屋` form but not the word `foo` in isolation, and you want to figure out the correct form of `foo` in isolation? Then, a-e alternation is not the only case of 露出形-被覆形 alternation as you can see in the linked question, but there are probably only a few such cases, and `酒` is one of them. –  Oct 25 '11 at 21:54
  • Take ほん as an example. It's a word that can be turned into a shop by adding や to it. Do I have to remember that that particular word doesn't need the ほん modified, or can I just remember "since it doesn't end in an `e` sound, it doesn't need modification". It's like having `case original_noun` and replacing `when "hon"` with `when /e$/` in programming. – Andrew Grimm Oct 25 '11 at 22:19
  • Or `when /[^e]$/` to be precise. – Andrew Grimm Oct 25 '11 at 22:47
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    I see. I got confused because you used the term "modify" in the opposite direction: `saka` as you see in `saka-ya` is the original, `sake` used in isolation is the modified. But as I said, there are only a few cases, so you don't have to worry about changing the form. If you do not change the form where you are supposed to, it will still be understandable, and you will likely notice shortly after. –  Oct 25 '11 at 23:15
  • I don't really have anything to add but I just saw this question and this is a really cool explanation. – jlptnone Nov 28 '11 at 07:03