Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:09:18.502Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mora or syllable? Which unit do Japanese use in naming visually presented stimuli?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2004

KATSUO TAMAOKA  and
YASUSHI TERAO
KATSUO TAMAOKA
Affiliation:
Hiroshima University
YASUSHI TERAO
Affiliation:
University of Shizuoka
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Because the Japanese phonetic script (i.e., kana) represents moraic units, it is often claimed that Japanese people assemble phonology at the moraic unit. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the unit for naming visually presented stimuli, focusing on the special nasals /N/, geminates /Q/, long vowels /R/, and dual vowels /J/. The special sounds create two morae when there is only one syllable. Experiments 1 and 2 compared the production of three-mora, three-syllable and three-mora, two-syllable real, and nonsense words. The findings indicated that native Japanese speakers named the three-mora words containing the special sounds more quickly. Accordingly, it is posited that special sounds are named as syllable units rather than moraic units.

Type
Research Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amano N., & Kondo K. 2000. Nihongo-no goi tokusei [Lexical properties of Japanese]. Tokyo: Sanseido.
Besner D., & Hildebrandt N. 1987. Orthographic and phonological codes in the oral reading of Japanese kana. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 335 343.Google Scholar
Besner D., & Smith M. C. 1992. Basic processes in reading: Is the orthographic depth hypothesis sinking? In R. Frost & L. Katz (Eds.), Orthography, phonology, morphology, and meaning (pp. 45 66). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.
Cutler A. 1994a. The perception of rhythm in language. Cognition, 50, 79 81.
Cutler A. 1994b. Segmentation problems, rhythmic solutions. Lingua, 92, 81 104.
Cutler A., Mehler J., Norris D. G., & Segui J. 1986. The syllable's differing role in the segmentation of French and English. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 385 400.Google Scholar
Cutler A., & Norris D. G. 1988. The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 113 121.Google Scholar
Cutler A., & Otake T. 1994. Mora or phoneme? Further evidence for language-specific listening. Journal of Memory and Language, 33 824 844.Google Scholar
Goryo K. 1987. Yomu to iu koto [Concerning reading]. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.
Haraguchi S. 1996. Syllable, mora and accent. In T. Otake & A. Cutler (Eds.), Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies (pp. 45 75). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hatta T., Katoh H., & Kirsner K. 1984. Lexical representation of foreign loanwords in Japanese learners among native readers of English. Psychologia, 27, 237 243.Google Scholar
Hayashi R. 1999. Nihongo-no tango-ni okeru hyookisa kooka [Script difference effects on Japanese word recognition]. Tokyo: Kazama Shobo.
Imai Y., & Imai M. 1983. Yooji-ni okeru katakana yomi—Sono jittai to gakushuu nan'ido-no kentoo [Katakana reading by preschool children—Investigation for its situation and degree of acquisition difficulties]. Nara Bunka Joshi Tanki Daigaku Kiyoo, 14, 126 134.Google Scholar
Inagaki K., Hatano G., & Otake T. 2000. The effect of kana literacy acquisition on the speech segmentation unit used by Japanese young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 75, 70 91.Google Scholar
Ito T., & Kagawa A. 2001. Mojikakutokuzen-no yooji-ni okeru inritsu tan'i no hattatsu—Moora to onsetsu tono kankei [Development of prosodic units in children who have not acquired reading of Japanese kana characters—Relationship between syllables and mora]. Onsei Gengo Igaku, 42, 235 241.Google Scholar
Ito T., & Tatsumi I. 1997. Tokushuhaku-ni taisuru meta gengo chishiki [The development of metalinguistic awareness of mora-phonemes in Japanese young children]. Onsei Gengo Igaku, 38, 196 203.Google Scholar
Kawakami M. 1993. Kanago-no goi kettei kadai-ni okeru hyooki-no shinkinsei to shori tan'i [Script familiarity and processing unit in lexical decision with Japanaese kana words]. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 64, 235 239.Google Scholar
Kawakami S. 1977. Nihongo onsei gaisetsu [An introduction to Japanese phonetics]. Tokyo: Bifuusha.
Komatsu H. 1981. Nihongo-no on'in [Japanese phonology]. Tokyo: Chuuo Kooronsha.
Kubozono H. 1985. Speech errors and syllable structure. Linguistics and Philology, 6, 220 243.Google Scholar
Kubozono H. 1989. The mora and syllable structure in Japanese: Evidence from speech errors. Language and Speech, 32, 249 278.Google Scholar
Kubozono H. 1995. Perceptual evidence for the mora in Japanese. In B. Connell & A. Arvaniti (Eds.), Phonology and phonetic evidence: Papers in laboratory phonology IV (pp. 141 156). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kubozono H. 1998. Moora to onsetsu-no huhensei [Universality of mora and syllable]. Onsei Kenkyuu, 2, 5 15.Google Scholar
Kubozono H. 1999a. Kayoo-ni okeru moora to onsetsu [Mora and syllable in traditional Japanese songs]. In Onsei Bunpoo Kenkyuukai [Spoken language working group] (Eds.), Bunpoo to Onsei II [Speech and grammar II] (pp. 243 262). Tokyo: Kuroshio Shuppan.
Kubozono H. 1999b. Nihongo-no onsei [The Japanese sounds.] Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Kubozono H., & Ota S. 1998. On'in koozoo to akusento [Phonological structure and accents]. Tokyo: Kenkyuusha Shuppan.
Levelt W. J. M., Roelofs A., & Meyer A. S. 1999. A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 1 75.Google Scholar
Levelt W. J. M., & Wheeldon L. 1994. Do speakers have access to a mental syllabary? Cognition, 50, 239 269.Google Scholar
Machida S. 1988. Nihongo-no kihonteki-na rizumu-no settei hoohoo to rizumu pataan [On a way of describing Japanese rhythm and the typical rhythmic pattern of Japanese]. Sophia Linguistica, 25, 35 43.Google Scholar
Matsuzaki H. 1994. Wago, kango, gairaigo-no gokei to tokushu haku no onhairetsu joo no seiyaku [Frequencies of the Japanese special sounds in the lexical categories of Wago, Kango and Gairaigo]. Journal of the Department of Japanese, Tohoku University, 4, 75 86.Google Scholar
Matsuzaki H. 1996a. Nihonjin-no “onsetsu” to “haku” no chikaku—Gairaigo chooshu jikken-o tooshite [Perception of “mora” and “syllable” by native Japanese speakers—Perception of auditorily presented alphabetic loanwords]. Journal of the Department of Japanese, Tohoku University, 6, 81 92.Google Scholar
Matsuzaki H. 1996b. Tokushuon-o fukumu “onsetsu”-wa nihonjin-ni donoyoo-ni kikoete iruka [How do native Japanese speakers perceive “syllables” including the special morae?]. In Nihongo Kyooiku Gakkai [Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language] (Ed.), Nihongo kyooiku gakkai shuuki taikai yokoo shuu [Proceedings of the Japanese Language Education Conference—Autumn Session] (pp. 55 60). Tokyo: Soeisha.
Mehler J., Dommergues J.-Y., Frauenfelder U., & Segui J. 1981. The syllable's role in speech segmentation. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 298 305.Google Scholar
Otake T. 1992. Nihongo onsei-no chikaku joo-no bunsetsu no tan'i—Onsetsu to moora [Units of phonological segmentation perceiving Japanese words—Syllables and mora]. In S. Haraguchi (Ed.), Nihongo-no moora to onsetsu koozoo-ni kansuru soogooteki kenkyuu [A systematic study on phonological structure of mora and syllable] (Vol. 1, pp. 38 47). Report (03208104) of Group E10, Science Research Project, Ministry of Education, Japan.
Otake T. 1993. Nihongo onsei-no chikaku-no koozoo—Onsetsu to moora-no kyoozon-no kanoosei [Structural perception of Japanese sounds—Possibility of coexisting of syllable and mora]. In S. Haraguchi (Ed.), Nihongo-no moora to onsetsu koozoo-ni kansuru soogooteki kenkyuu [A systematic study on phonological structure of mora and syllable] (Vol. 2, pp. 51 71). Report (03208104) of Group E10, Science Research Project, Ministry of Education, Japan.
Otake T., Davis S., & Cutler A. 1995. Listeners' representations of within-word structure: A cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal investigation. Proceedings of EUROSPEECH 95, Madrid (Vol. 3, pp. 1703 1706).
Otake T., Hatano G., & Yoneyama K. 1996. Speech segmentation by Japanese listeners. In T. Otake & A. Cutler (Eds.), Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies (pp. 183 201). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Otake T., Hatano G., Cutler A., & Mehler J. 1993. Mora or syllable? Speech segmentation in Japanese. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 358 378.Google Scholar
Otake T., & Imai Y. 2001. Nihongo-o bogo to suru yooji-no onsetsu-no kaikoozoo-no nin'siki to sono fuhensei [Awareness of subsyllabic structure by Japanese preschool children and its universality]. On'in Kenkyuu, 4, 81 88.Google Scholar
Otake T., & Yamamoto K. 1997. Listeners' representations of within-word structure for bilinguial Japanese speakers of English and monolingual speakers of Japanese and English. Paper presented at the 134th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Diego, CA.
Otake T., & Yoneyama K. 1998. Phonological units in speech segmentation and phonological awareness. In R. H. Mannell & J. Robert–Ribes (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, Sydney, Australia (Vol. 5, pp. 2179 2182). Canberra City, Australia: Australian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.
Otake T., & Yoneyama K. 2000. Shin'nai jisho-no on'in tan'i to sono ninshiki [Phonological units in mental lexicon and their awareness]. On'in Kenkyuu, 3, 21 28.Google Scholar
Sakuma N., Fushimi T., & Tatsumi I. 1997. Onseiha-no shisatsu niyoru kana-no ondokusenji-no sokutei—Ondokusenji-wa gotoo'on-no choo'onhoo niyori ookiku kotonaru [Measuring naming latencies of kana by sound spectrograph—Naming latencies change depending upon vocalization of the initial onsets]. Shinkei Shinrigaku 13, 126 136.Google Scholar
Sugito M. 1999. Kotoba-no supiido kan towa nanika [What is the sense of speed in words?]. Gengo, 28 (9), 30 34.Google Scholar
Taft M. 1991. Reading and the mental lexicon. London: Erlbaum.
Tamaoka K. 2000. Chuugokugokei oyobi eigokei nihongo gakushuusha-no bogo-no hyooki keitai-ga nihongo-no on'in shori-ni oyobosu eikyoo [The effects of mother-tongue scripts on the phonological processing of the Japanese language by native Chinese and English speakers]. Dokusho Kagaku, 44, 83 94.Google Scholar
Tamaoka K., & Hatsuzuka M. 1997. Hiragana to katakana-no shori-ni okeru kankaku benbetsu oyobi kankaku shikibetsu kinoo [Sense-discriminative and sense-determinative functions in the processing of Japanese hiragana and katakana]. Dokusho Kagaku, 41, 15 28. (In Japanese)Google Scholar
Tamaoka K., Hatsuzuka M., Kess J. F., & Bogdan D. R. 1998. Hiragana tai katakana: Goi oyobi gizigo no shori-ni okeru hyooki-no shinkinsei kooka [Hiragana vs. katakana: The script familiarity effect on the processing of Japanese words and pseudo-words]. Dokusho Kagaku, 42, 1 15.Google Scholar
Tamaoka K., Leong C. K., & Hatta T. 1992. Effects of vocal interference in identifying kanji, hiragana and katakana words by skilled and less skilled Japanese readers in Grades 4–6. Psychologia, 35, 33 41.Google Scholar
Tanaka S. 1999. Nihongo-no onsetsu to 4-haku-no tenpureeto—Senryuu to puro yakyuu seien-ni okeru “jiamari”-no bunseki [Syllable and four-mora templates in Japanese—Analyses of “ji-amari” in Senryu poems and baseball cheering]. In Onsei Bunpoo Kenkyuukai [Spoken language working group] (Eds.), Bunpoo to onsei II [Speech and grammer II] (pp. 261 290). Tokyo: Kuroshio Shuppan.
Terao Y. 1996. Iiayamari bunseki to on'intan'i [Analysis of speech errors and phonological units]. Gengo, 25 (8), 100 110.Google Scholar
Terao Y. 2002. Iiayamari wa dooshite okoru? [How do speech errors occur?]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Yokoyama S. 1997. Hyooki to kioku [Script and memory]. Tokyo: Japanese Psychological Association.