2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
A non-invasive test for diagnosing cognition in three SOV languages: Japanese, Korean and Bodo
| Project/Area Number |
18K00546
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
|
| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
|---|
| Section | 一般 |
|---|
| Review Section |
Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
|
|---|
| Research Institution | International Christian University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
|
|---|
| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
李 勝勲 国際基督教大学, 教養学部, 上級准教授 (20770134)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
|
| Keywords | Syntax / Sentence Processing / SOV languages / Japanese / Korean / Nuosu Yi / Aging effects |
|---|
| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This project investigated how younger and elder speakers of SOV languages process sentence types. The three languages, Japanese, Korean and Nuosu Yi share grammatical features, such as relatively free word order, the presence of nominal particles and possibility of dropping arguments. We investigated simple transitive sentences (subject-object versus object-subject), sentences with instrumentals (instrumental-object versus object-instrumental) and comparative sentences (target - standard versus standard-target).
In all three constructions, participants of the three languages display comparable results. Compared to younger speakers, elderly speakers tend to show lower accuracy in addition to slower response time, which suggests that the word order variation adds cognitive loads that burden elderly participants more than younger participants. These outcomes suggest that the presence of nominal particles may not be sufficient when speakers process scrambled sentences.
|
| Free Research Field |
Syntax
|
| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
This cross-linguistic project has shown that (i) sentence processing mechanism across different SOV languages (Japanese, Korean, Nuosu Yi) is comparable, and (ii) the age effect is present in sentences with marked word order, which turned out to be more important than morphological marking.
|
