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An investigation of vowel devoicing and prosodic structure in Japanese

Research Project

Project/Area Number 23720239
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Research Field Japanese linguistics
Research InstitutionRitsumeikan University

Principal Investigator

HIRAYAMA Manami  立命館大学, 産業社会学部, 准教授 (90580027)

Research Collaborator GIRIKO Mikio  日本学術振興会, 特別研究員(PD) (00580028)
Project Period (FY) 2011 – 2013
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2013)
Budget Amount *help
¥2,730,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥630,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000)
Fiscal Year 2011: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Keywords母音の無声化 / プロソディー / 韻律 / アクセント / 知覚 / 形態論 / フット / 日本語 / 対立 / 韻律構造
Research Abstract

In this project, I investigated vowel devoicing, a well-studied phonological feature of Japanese, focusing on its interaction with prosodic structure, a relatively unexplored area in the literature. The following two findings comprise the main contribution of my project.
First, I conducted a perception experiment to test whether Japanese speakers can hear accent contrasts between words involving accents on devoiced vowels. I found that although participants could hear the contrasts fairly well overall, one contrast type was harder to detect than others, suggesting a bias in perception toward certain accent patterns.
Second, I carried out a dictionary survey and production experiment to discover whether vowel devoicing would be affected by morphological information such as word-internal boundaries, as claimed in the literature. The results suggest that it is not the morphology but rather phonology, specifically prosodic information, that affects vowel devoicing in Japanese.

Report

(4 results)
  • 2013 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report ( PDF )
  • 2012 Research-status Report
  • 2011 Research-status Report
  • Research Products

    (17 results)

All 2013 2012 Other

All Journal Article (2 results) (of which Peer Reviewed: 2 results) Presentation (13 results) (of which Invited: 2 results) Book (2 results)

  • [Journal Article] Transition to a Two-Type Accent System in Tokyo Japanese? The Behavior of Surnames2013

    • Author(s)
      Vance, Timothy J., Manami Hirayama and Mikio Giriko
    • Journal Title

      Japanese/Korean Linguistics (Stanford : CSLI Publications) (Bjarke Frellesvig and Peter Sells (eds.))

      Volume: Vol.20 Pages: 183-196

    • Related Report
      2013 Final Research Report
    • Peer Reviewed
  • [Journal Article] Transition to a Two-Type Accent System in Tokyo Japanese? The Behavior of Surnames2013

    • Author(s)
      Timothy J. Vance, Manami Hirayama, and Mikio Giriko
    • Journal Title

      Japanese/Korean Linguistics

      Volume: 20 Pages: 183-196

    • Related Report
      2013 Annual Research Report
    • Peer Reviewed
  • [Presentation] Testing the visibility of morphology in postlexical phonology : Evidence from vowel devoicing in Japanese2013

    • Author(s)
      Hirayama, Manami
    • Organizer
      Phonology Group meeting
    • Place of Presentation
      Department of Linguistics
    • Year and Date
      2013-09-06
    • Related Report
      2013 Final Research Report
    • Invited
  • [Presentation] A preliminary study on morphological effects in high vowel devoicing in Japanese2013

    • Author(s)
      Hirayama, Manami
    • Organizer
      The Third International Conference on Phonetics and Phonology
    • Place of Presentation
      The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics(東京都立川市)
    • Related Report
      2013 Final Research Report
  • [Presentation] Perception of accent contrasts in vowel devoicing in Japanese2013

    • Author(s)
      Hirayama, Manami and Mikio Giriko
    • Organizer
      The International Conference on Phonetics and Phonology 2013
    • Place of Presentation
      The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics(東京都立川市)
    • Related Report
      2013 Final Research Report
  • [Presentation] A preliminary study on morphological effects in high vowel devoicing in Japanese2013

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama
    • Organizer
      The Third International Conference on Phonetics and Phonology
    • Place of Presentation
      国立国語研究所(東京都立川市)
    • Related Report
      2013 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] Perception of accent contrasts in vowel devoicing in Japanese2013

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama & Mikio Giriko
    • Organizer
      The International Conference on Phonetics and Phonology 2013
    • Place of Presentation
      国立国語研究所(東京都)
    • Related Report
      2012 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] Boundary Effects in Lexical Accent Variation and Vowel Devoicing in Japanese2012

    • Author(s)
      Hirayama, Manami and Mikio Giriko
    • Organizer
      The 22nd Japanese/Korean Linguistics
    • Place of Presentation
      The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics(東京都立川市)
    • Related Report
      2013 Final Research Report
  • [Presentation] Boundary Effects in Lexical Accent Variation and Vowel Devoicing in Japanese2012

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama & Mikio Giriko
    • Organizer
      The 22nd Japanese/Korean Linguistics
    • Place of Presentation
      国立国語研究所(東京都)
    • Related Report
      2012 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] Perception of accent contrasts and devoiced vowels in Japanese2012

    • Author(s)
      Hirayama, Manami and Mikio Giriko
    • Organizer
      関西音韻論研究会
    • Place of Presentation
      神戸大学、兵庫県
    • Related Report
      2011 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] Testing the visibility of morphology in postlexical phonology: Evidence from vowel devoicing in Japanese

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama
    • Organizer
      Phonology Group meeting
    • Place of Presentation
      Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto(カナダ)
    • Related Report
      2013 Annual Research Report
    • Invited
  • [Presentation] A preliminary study on morphological effects in high vowel devoicing in Japanese

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama
    • Organizer
      Lexicon Festa
    • Place of Presentation
      国立国語研究所(東京都立川市)
    • Related Report
      2013 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] Testing the effect of morphological boundaries in vowel devoicing in Japanese: A preliminary study

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama
    • Organizer
      関西音韻論研究会
    • Place of Presentation
      神戸大学(兵庫県神戸市)
    • Related Report
      2013 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] Effects of morphological boundaries in vowel devoicing in Japanese

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama
    • Organizer
      関西音韻論研究会
    • Place of Presentation
      神戸大学(兵庫県)
    • Related Report
      2012 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] Boundary Effects in Lexical Accent Variation and Vowel Devoicing in Japanese

    • Author(s)
      Manami Hirayama & Mikio Giriko
    • Organizer
      国立国語研究所理論・構造研究系プロジェクト研究成果合同発表会
    • Place of Presentation
      国立国語研究所(東京都)
    • Related Report
      2012 Research-status Report
  • [Book] Current Issues in Japanese Phonology : Segmental Variation in Japanese (Jeroen van de Weijer and Tetsuo Nishihara 編) (論文名:Vowel Devoicing in Japanese and Postlexical Alterability of Syllable Structure)2013

    • Author(s)
      Hirayama, Manami
    • Total Pages
      172
    • Publisher
      開拓社
    • Related Report
      2013 Final Research Report
  • [Book] Current Issues in Japanese Phonology: Segmental Variation in Japanese2013

    • Author(s)
      Jeroen van de Weijer and Tetsuo Nishihara (eds.)
    • Total Pages
      172
    • Publisher
      くろしお出版
    • Related Report
      2012 Research-status Report

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Published: 2011-08-05   Modified: 2019-07-29  

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