Shigeto Kawahara

Sonorancy and geminacy

This paper establishes the claim that geminate sonorants are cross-linguistically marked, and furthermore, that the relative sonority of a geminate positively correlates with its markedness, i.e., the universal ranking *GEMGLIDE » *GEMLIQUID » *GEMNASAL holds. This ranking is supported by a cross-linguistic survey of geminate inventories (Podesva 2002; Taylor 1985) as well as by a number of phonological alternations. Second, this paper proposes that this markedness hierarchy derives from the confusability of geminacy contrasts for sonorant segments: the more sonorous a segment is, the more difficult it is to perceive its segmental duration, and hence the less perceptible its geminacy contrasts are. A perceptual experiment on Arabic is reported to support this proposal, which shows that discriminability of geminacy contrasts negatively correlates with relative sonority. The results add to a growing body of literature that claims that languages avoid making a phonological contrast that is not very perceptible, as in Adaptive Dispersion Theory (Flemming 1995; Liljencrants and Lindblom 1972; Padgett 2003) and Licensing-by-Cue (Steriade 1997).

The intonation of gapping and coordination in Japanese: evidence for intonational phrase and utterance.

In previous studies of Japanese intonational phonology, levels of prosodic constituents above the Major Phrase have not received much attention. This paper argues that at least two prosodic levels exist above the Major Phrase in Japanese. Through a detailed investigation of the intonation of gapping and coordination in Japanese, we argue that each syntactic clause projects its own Intonational Phrase, while an entire sentence constitutes one Utterance. We show that the Intonational Phrase is characterized by tonal lowering, creakiness and a pause in final position, as well as a distinctive large initial rise and pitch reset at its beginning. The Utterance defines a domain of declination, and it is signaled by an even larger initial rise, as well as a phrasal H tone at its right edge. Building on our empirical findings, we discuss several implications for the theory of intonational phonology.

Testing Japanese loanword devoicing: Addressing task effects

Abstract In the loanword phonology of Japanese, voiced obstruent geminates ([bb, dd, gg]) have been claimed to devoice when they co-occur with another voiced obstruent within the same morpheme (e.g., /beddo/ → [betto] ‘bed’). This devoicing pattern has contributed much to address a number of theoretical issues in the recent phonological literature. However, the relevant data have been primarily based on intuition-based data provided by Nishimura (2003) and Kawahara (2006). Kawahara (2011a, 2011b) addressed this issue by conducting rating studies using naive native speakers of Japanese. The results generally supported the intuition-based data by Nishimura (2003) and Kawahara (2006). However, the rating studies also revealed several aspects of the devoicing pattern that go beyond the intuition-based data as well. The current study further investigates the devoicing pattern by varying several task variables. In particular, this paper builds on Kawahara (2011a, 2011b) by adding (i) nonce word stimuli, (ii) a binary yes/no experiment, and (iii) auditory stimuli. The results show that (i) nonce words and real words behave similarly, but nonce words nevertheless show less variability across different grammatical conditions than real words; (ii) the binary yes/no experiment shows results similar to those of the scale-based experiment; and (iii) while auditory stimuli yield results comparable with those of orthographic stimuli, they also show an exaggerated effect of a phonetic implementation pattern. Overall, this paper uses Japanese as a case study, and finds some task effects in phonological judgment experiments. It is hoped that this paper stimulates further experimental research on phonological judgments of other phenomena in Japanese as well as in other languages.

Can we use rendaku for phonological argumentation

Abstract This paper addresses the general issue of the quality of phonological data, using rendaku as a case study. Rendaku is a widely-discussed voicing process that accompanies compound formation in Japanese. The issue of the quality of phonological data has been discussed from time to time from various perspectives throughout the history of phonological research, and we are recently witnessing renewed interest in this topic. This paper takes up rendaku as a case study to address this issue. Rendaku has been used to argue for many theoretical devices, but it is rarely acknowledged in the theoretical literature that rendaku involves extensive lexical irregularity. The specific question addressed in this study is whether it is appropriate to use rendaku for phonological argumentation. The answer that this paper proposes is yes, but the more crucial lesson is that theoretical phonology should evaluate the quality of phonological data more explicitly. The current discussion offers a first step toward establishing general guidelines about what kind of evidence can be used to decide whether a pattern under question is phonological or not.

The role of psychoacoustic similarity in Japanese puns: A corpus study

A growing body of recent work on the phonetics-phonology interface argues that many phonological patterns refer to psychoacoustic similarity - perceived similarity between sounds based on detailed acoustic information. In particular, two corresponding elements in phonology (e.g. inputs and outputs) are required to be as psychoacoustically similar as possible (Steriade 2001a, b, 2003; Fleischhacker 2005; Kawahara 2006; Zuraw 2007). Using a corpus of Japanese imperfect puns, this paper lends further support to this claim. Our corpus-based study shows that when Japanese speakers compose puns, they require two corresponding consonants to be as similar as possible, and the measure of similarity rests on psychoacoustic information.

Production and perception of listener-oriented clear speech in child language

In this paper, we ask whether children are sensitive to the needs of their interlocutor, and, if so, whether they - like adults - modify acoustic characteristics of their speech as part of a communicative goal. In a production task, preschoolers participated in a word learning task that favored the use of clear speech. Children produced vowels that were longer, more intense, more dispersed in the vowel space, and had a more expanded F0 range than normal speech. Two perception studies with adults showed that these acoustic differences were perceptible and were used to distinguish normal and clear speech styles. We conclude that preschoolers are sensitive to aspects of the speaker-hearer relationship calling upon them to modify their speech in ways that benefit their listener.

Mimetic gemination in Japanese: A challenge for Evolutionary Phonology*

Abstract 1. Introduction Blevinss Evolutionary Phonology attempts to derive most if not all synchronic phonological patterns from diachronic changes: “[R]ecurrent synchronic sound patterns are a direct reflection of their diachronic origins, and, more specifically … regular phonetically based sound change is the common source of recurrent sound patterns. Evolutionary Phonology … investigates this hypothesis and explores its consequences for phonological theory” (Blevins 2006: 120). Evolutionary Phonology suggests that, to avoid duplication in linguistic theory, diachronic explanations must take priority over synchronic explanations whenever possible: “[P]rincipled diachronic explanations for sound patterns replace, rather than complement, synchronic explanations, unless independent evidence demonstrates, beyond reasonable doubt, that a separate synchronic account is warranted” (Blevins 2004a: 5).

Japanese has syllables: A reply to Labrune

Labrune (2012b) proposes a syllable-less theory of Japanese, suggesting that Japanese has no syllables, with only moras below the foot. She argues that there is no phonetic or psycholinguistic evidence for the existence of syllables in Japanese. This reply summarises and re-examines previous experimental findings that demonstrate that Japanese does show evidence for syllables both phonetically and psycholinguistically. After an extensive review of previous studies, this reply also takes up a number of phonological and theoretical issues that require an explicit response from the perspective of a syllable proponent. On the basis of these considerations, this paper concludes that Japanese does have syllables.

Nasal place assimilation and the perceptibility of place contrasts

Abstract Typological studies of place assimilation show that nasal consonants are more likely to assimilate in place than oral stops (Cho, 1990; Jun, 1995, 2004; Mohanan, 1993). Jun (1995, 2004) argues that this typological asymmetry derives from a difference in the perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants and in oral stops. Since the place contrasts in nasals are perceptually weaker than the place contrasts in oral stops, speakers are more willing to neutralize the former. However, the previous phonetic and psycholinguistic experiments do not provide unambiguous evidence for the weaker perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants (Hura et al., 1992; Mohr & Wang, 1968; Pols, 1983; Winters, 2002). To offer additional experimental findings bearing on this debate, this paper reports two similarity judgment experiments and two identification experiments in noise, which all show the lower perceptibility of the place contrasts in nasal consonants in coda. The results are compatible with— and thus can lend support to—Jun’s (1995, 2004) idea that the asymmetry in place assimilation may result from a difference in the perceptibility of place contrasts.

Context effects as auditory contrast

Three experiments are reported that collectively show that listeners perceive speech sounds as contrasting auditorily with neighboring sounds. Experiment 1 replicates the well-established finding that listeners categorize more of a [d–g] continuum as [g] after [l] than after [r]. Experiments 2 and 3 show that listeners discriminate stimuli in which the energy concentrations differ in frequency between the spectra of neighboring sounds better than those in which they do not differ. In Experiment 2, [alga–arda] pairs, in which the energy concentrations in the liquid-stop sequences are H(igh) L(ow)–LH, were more discriminable than [alda–arga] pairs, in which they are HH–LL. In Experiment 3, [da] and [ga] syllables were more easily discriminated when they were preceded by lower and higher pure tones, respectively—that is, tones that differed from the stops’ higher and lower F3 onset frequencies—than when they were preceded by H and L pure tones with similar frequencies. These discrimination results show that contrast with the target’s context exaggerates its perceived value when energy concentrations differ in frequency between the target’s spectrum and its context’s spectrum. Because contrast with its context does more that merely shift the criterion for categorizing the target, it cannot be produced by neural adaptation. The finding that nonspeech contexts exaggerate the perceived values of speech targets also rules out compensation for coarticulation by showing that their values depend on the proximal auditory qualities evoked by the stimuli’s acoustic properties, rather than the distal articulatory gestures.