Phonetic Realization of Compound Words with Multiple Accented Units: Pronunciation Survey and Listening Experiment

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K21968
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0102:Literature, linguistics, and related fields
• Research Institution: HOKUYO University (2022); Waseda University (2020-2021)
• Principal Investigator: CHEN XI 北洋大学, 国際文化学部, 講師 (10880528)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-09-11 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 複合語 / 日本語 / 複数のアクセント単位

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study examined the accentuation of compound words and elucidated the influence of semantic relations on phonetic realization for both speech production and listening. In speech production, the accent of the posterior element is notably weaker in the compound “family name + job title” than in “family name + first name.” This indicates that the non-fused accent in Japanese compounds does not have a single phonetic realization but varies according to the semantic structure of the compound. In terms of speech evaluation, the compounds “family name + job title” and “family name + first name” differ in terms of the perceived naturalness of speech when the posterior element is not weakened, which suggests that the range for the natural phonetic realization of compound words without a fused accent differs depending on the semantic relation of the compound word.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

複数のアクセント単位からなる複合語の音声的実現に関して，従来の研究では断片的な記述しかない。本研究は従来取り上げられることのなかった文中における複数のアクセント単位からなる複合語に焦点を当てた。手法として発音調査の音響分析と合成音声の聴取実験を併用した点も本研究の特徴の1つである。本研究によって，日本語における複数のアクセント単位からなる複合語は単一の音声的実現ではなく，複合語の意味関係に応じていくつかのバリエーションを持つことが明らかになった。この成果は日本語複合語のアクセント研究に新たな知見を提供することになる。