Abstract This study explored the acquisition of Japanese word-initial voiceless stops by Mandarin trilinguals with advanced proficiency in their third language Japanese. The relationship between their full-time equivalent (FTE) years of Japanese input and their production and perception of the target stops was also investigated. Mandarin trilinguals and Japanese bilinguals completed a production experiment by reading Japanese words with the target stops, and completed a perception experiment by listening to Japanese stop continua with synthetic stimuli varying in voice onset time (VOT) values. The results showed that the Mandarin trilinguals produced the target stops with longer VOT values than the Japanese bilinguals, and had perceptual category boundaries at longer VOT values than the bilinguals. The trilinguals’ production and perception skills revealed phonetic interference from both their native Mandarin and second language English. The correlation analysis between the trilinguals’ FTE and their mean VOT values and mean category boundaries indicated that longer FTE for trilinguals may not directly translate into target-like performance.
Abstract This study tested the applicability of the Interface Hypothesis by investigating the acquisition of discourse constraints concerning Japanese pronouns. It extends previous studies on second language (L2) Italian in three ways. First, the two factors affecting the choice of antecedents for pronouns, topichood and subjecthood, were separated to determine the more crucial one. Second, it investigated the distribution of subject and object pronouns. Third, it considered the effects of the antecedents’ surface word order. The written interpretation and production tasks show that (i) subjecthood is crucial in determining antecedents for null pronominal subjects in Japanese, not topichood or word order, and (ii) L2 grammar is not different from monolingual grammar except when interpreting specific null pronominal subjects, attributable to a task effect. The latter fails to support the Interface Hypothesis but supports the view that all aspects of the discourse-syntax interface are not necessarily problematic in L2 acquisition.
Abstract This study tested nine groups of listeners on their discrimination of three pitch accent patterns in Japanese-like nonwords. We performed three analyses on listeners’ pitch discrimination accuracy. The first compared two tonal language-speaking groups (Mandarin and Cantonese), the second involved L1 English groups with tonal or nontonal L2 classroom experience, and the third L2/3 Japanese learners at two proficiency levels. The main finding of the study revealed that speaking a tonal L1 or having learned a tonal language as an L2 facilitates the discrimination of Japanese pitch accent patterns. However, accuracy differences between the two tonal L1 groups were not detected on the discrimination task. In addition, Japanese proficiency only increased perceptual accuracy for L1 tonal speakers. These findings provide further evidence for facilitative transfer of tone experience to the prelexical processing of pitch in an L2/3.
Abstract This study explored the impact of working memory (WM) on speech production among L2 Japanese learners. Previous empirical research has shown that WM plays a significant role in L2 Japanese speech production. The current study focused exclusively on data from native English speakers who were enrolled in Japanese language programs at universities in North America. Statistical analyses revealed a significant correlation between performance on the Japanese Speaking Span Test and the learners’ ability to construct syntactically complex sentences in Japanese. The findings suggest that learners with higher working memory capacity are not only more capable of producing syntactically complex sentences, but also tend to maintain greater grammatical accuracy in their spoken Japanese.
Abstract In the UG-based framework of third language acquisition research, there has been limited investigation into the acquisition of East Asian languages compared to European languages. This paper focuses on the acquisition of East Asian languages, specifically examining interpretation of null arguments in Japanese. By taking into account the variation in agreement across languages, it is possible to predict how learners interpret null arguments in Japanese, given that Japanese null arguments exhibit argument ellipsis (AE). Interestingly, although Chinese is an agreement-less language like Japanese, Chinese null subjects behave differently from Japanese null subjects. This paper investigates crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in interpretation of null arguments in L3 Japanese grammar of L1-Chinese L2-English speakers. The findings indicate that L3 Japanese learners, regardless of their proficiency levels, interpret null subjects in a similar manner to those of L1 Japanese speakers. Our results allow us to address the most important issues in contemporary L3 acquisition theory; namely, the source, type and manner of CLI.
This paper analyzes the constraints that Virtual YouTubers (VTubers) encounter during “just chatting” streams on YouTube Live when interacting with viewers who send text messages. We apply quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how frequently streamers refer to viewers’ messages, the time lag between message receipt and reference, and how streamers cope linguistically with live streaming constraints. The analysis demonstrates that streamers struggle to address all messages, particularly given the occurrence of unavoidable time lags. We also found that streamers use three methods to manage these challenges: “reading messages aloud”, “reading usernames aloud”, and “using adjacency pairs”. Additionally, we noted that in “reading messages aloud” – the most frequently used method – quotative particles and reporting verbs are often omitted, deviating from general modern Japanese grammar. This omission, while similar to phenomena in spoken Japanese, is uniquely influenced by the nature of live streaming and “just chatting” activities.
Studies agree that the core function of the illocutionary particle ne is expressing alignment of the interlocutors’ internal worlds. However, ne yields various and sometimes seemingly unrelated interpretations and functions such as soliciting agreement, asking for confirmation, reporting, keeping the floor, getting attention, expressing strong refusal, etc. Employing Kamio’s overarching categories of Obligatory and Optional ne , this study evaluates these two types of ne systematically in light of criteria not previously utilized in other studies, focusing on whether the speaker thinks there is alignment or wants there to be alignment between their internal world and the addressee’s at the time of utterance. The study further argues that proposing two distinct functions of ne helps explain the covert semantic links between the sentence-final ne and ne that occurs in positions other than sentence-final position. Additionally, the study argues for a cultural rationale for the use of ne in interactions in Japanese.
This paper examines a particular purpose expression (PE), namely a clause with a phrase headed by the morpheme - ni , which we dub ni P. Previous literature has stated that restructuring is regulated by an intervening element between the ni P and the matrix predicate, but we provide apparent counterexamples. Considering dialectal data from western Japan, we propose that the nominative case (NOM) is licensed by the amalgam of the potential affix and focus. We then show that our counterexamples are associated with the NOM-marked NP being focused and argue that the focused NOM-marked NP is subject to licensing by the amalgam of the potential affix and focus. We also show that the excorporation-based proposal enables us to capture the effect of restructuring without relying on the pre-minimalist restructuring operation.
This paper examines Japanese sequential voicing phenomenon, so-called rendaku from the perspective of syntax-morphophonology interface. In particular, how the nature of the relation between the first and second element (E1 and E2, respectively) of a compound affects rendaku in E2 in novel deverbal-noun compound formation is investigated. An experiment that examined the frequency of rendaku depending on the nature of E2 (existing vs. nonce) and the relationship between E1 and E2 (subject, indirect object, direct object, locative adjunct, and instrument adjunct) showed that, rendaku is significantly less frequent with a nonce E2, with direct objects than subjects, and with locative adjuncts than instrument adjuncts. Importantly, contrary to what previous studies predicted, argument-adjunct distinction did not hold a significant effect. These findings can be accounted for under the hypothesis that speakers have two competing motivations, to use the rendaku form and show the uniformness of a compound, or to use the non-rendaku form and keep E2 unchanged, and that rendaku is sensitive to different types of grammatical relations between components of a compound. (Areas of study: Experimental syntax, Phonology, Morphophonology).
Three case studies from Japanese and Ryukyuan are presented in support of the generalization that, in the course of grammaticalization of an innovative verbal construction, vowel-stem forms will resist reductive phonological processes that apply to consonant-stem forms. Given that the constructions of the case studies are based on the verbal Ren’yookei , this differential susceptibility to phonological reduction is attributed to the fact that vowel-stem Ren’yookei instantiate the structure [[X] s ] w (s = stem, w = word) and are therefore isolation forms. A Stem Inalterability Condition is proposed to capture the observed generalization, and that condition is shown to account for the restriction of verbal onbin before t -initial suffixes to consonant-stems in both Japanese and Ryukyuan and to provide a natural understanding of the r -zero alternation of the Old Japanese Rentaikei and Izenkei suffixes.
Utterance-final particles (UFPs) in Japanese can be immediately preceded by any lexical item, and can carry various tonal contours, each conveying nuanced meanings in discourse. This paper focuses on the empathetic UFP - ne , investigating its phonological representation (rather than its morphological, syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic representation) based on its usage as established in the literature. While traditionally viewed as a consonant-vowel sequence, our experimental data recorded by a total of 66 typically developed native Japanese speakers reveals the empathetic - ne has a consistently longer duration than the non-empathetic - yo . This paper proposes to represent the vowel of - ne as a structural configuration containing two tone-bearing units (e.g., VV or μμ), and focuses on the infrequent use of this structure among individuals with higher autistic tendencies, specifically in terms of difficulties with social skills.
When describing an event in which one participant acts on the other, English native speakers tend to perceive the participant at the beginning of the action chain as the most salient and describe it as the subject. In contrast, native Japanese speakers tend to perceive the participant with the highest degree of empathy as the most salient and describe it as the subject. In order to examine when children acquire this language-unique pattern of perceiving and describing, this study conducted a picture description experiment on English/Japanese native children aged 3–5 years old. The results showed that already at the age of 3, there was a clear difference between Japanese and English native children in terms of which participant in the event they focus on. This study also found that this difference contributes to the fact that native Japanese children can use passive voice, despite cognitive and morphological complexity, from the age of 3 years old.
Two major views have been proposed regarding the mechanism underlying morphological generalization: rule-based and analogy-based mechanisms. The analogy-based mechanism is sensitive to the similarity of nonce words to existing words, whereas the rule-based mechanism is not. This study investigated the production of volitional forms of Japanese verbs whose non-past forms end with suru by using an elicited production experiment with low- and high-frequency real verbs and novel verbs with varying degrees of similarity to existing verbs. The findings are as follows: The conjugational form of the largest verb group was preferred, and an increase in the conjugational form of a smaller verb group was found only in the completely similar condition. These results can be explained by the rule-based mechanism.
This study explores the relationship between prosody and quantifier scope interpretation in the context of Japanese-speaking children and adults. Prior research has investigated how prosody, a universal quantifier and negation interact in the theoretical literature of Japanese linguistics, yet the empirical evidence remains inconclusive. Employing a Picture-Selection task, we investigate how Thematic Topic (TT) and Contrastive Topic (CT) prosody affect interpretation. The results reveal that both children and adults exhibit sensitivity to prosodic distinctions, with a less preference for the surface scope interpretation with the CT prosody. The results also demonstrate highly ambiguous nature of the TT prosody. The discrepancy in response times suggests potential processing disparities between age groups and highlights the complex interplay of prosody and quantifier scope.
This study examined (i) the stage at which pitch accents contribute to lexical processing in native Japanese speakers and (ii) the interpretation pathway for the meaning of words pronounced with incorrect pitch accents. Event-related potential analyses during spoken word processing showed that words with incorrect accents elicited greater N400 amplitudes than those with correct accents, indicating that accent information aids in selecting suitable candidates from activated lexicons rather than in lexical activation itself. We employed a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm for the second aim, which involved exposure to a spoken word (prime) followed by a picture (target). Analyses of event-related spectral perturbations showed that the facilitation of semantic processing of the picture, indicated by low-gamma activity, occurred only after correctly accented words and not after incorrectly accented words. These findings suggest that incorrect Japanese pitch accents inhibit full access to their semantic contents when the words are spoken without appropriate contexts.
