A limited number of words in Japanese use epenthetic consonants to separate vowels. An example is the word , a compound of "haru" and "ame" in which an is added to separate the final of "haru" and the initial of "ame". That is a "synchronic" analysis. As for a diachronic (historical) analysis, since epenthetic consonants are not used regularly in modern Japanese, the epenthetic could be from Old Japanese. It is also possible that Old Japanese /ame2/ was once pronounced */same2/; the would then be not epenthetic but simply an archaic pronunciation. Another example is .