2019 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
A non-invasive test for diagnosing cognition in three SOV languages: Japanese, Korean and Bodo
| Project/Area Number |
18K00546
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| Research Institution | International Christian University |
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Principal Investigator |
吉田 智行 国際基督教大学, 教養学部, 教授 (50245669)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
李 勝勲 国際基督教大学, 教養学部, 准教授 (20770134)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | SOV / Sentence Processing / Instrumental / Comparative / Japanese / Korean / Bodo |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The goal of this project is understanding sentence processing in three SOV languages (Japanese, Korean and Bodo). All three languages are head-final where the verb occurs at the end of a sentence. Moreover, all three languages allow relatively free word order due to the presence of postpositions that mark grammatical roles of noun phrases. The Bodo group is part of the study because we wanted to ensure that our findings are mostly due to grammatical reasons rather than cultural or sociological reasons. The hypothesis is that if speakers of the three languages pattern in the same way, we can obtain results that are readily generalizable. We are also comparing patterns of younger speakers with those of older speakers in order to understand differences in sentence processing.
So far, we have collected data on word order tasks and instrumental tasks in normal adults (younger group versus elderly group). The elderly group has shown differences in response time as well as accuracy when it came to processing data. The preliminary results are currently being analyzed.
We have developed a new research paradigm for testing comparative constructions. The research team has put together materials that can systematically test the understanding of the comparatives. A pilot study with children has shown some results that suggest at least some constructions were challenging from the perspective of short term memory.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
While we have collected Japanese data, the comparable data on the Bodo language has not been collected due to two reasons. In November 2019, India was in turmoil due to the newly introduced citizenship law. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly refrained anyone to travel to Assam, as such the Co-PI (Lee) could not conduct the planned data collection.
Thereafter, the COVID-19 pandemic started unfolding, and we are slightly delayed than what we originally planned to do.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
AY2020 is the last year of the project. We will run experiments on the three targeted languages focusing on the comparative constructions. The tasks will include traveling to Guwahati, Assam, India and Seoul, Korea. However, the current COVID-19 situation may prevent us from traveling for research activities. As such, we are exploring how to move our experiments online so that local assistants can run experiments on behalf of us.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Due to the societal disturbance in Assam, India, a planned fieldtrip was not conducted. We expect that the trip will occur this year.
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