An empirical study of the interaction between prosodic information and morphological structure

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K20027
• 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: Nagoya Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Huang Chuyu 名古屋学院大学, 外国語学部, 講師 (70908665)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-08-30 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 形態構造 / 韻律情報 / 音韻論 / 音声学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research explores the correlation between the morphological structure and prosodic information in Japanese compound words. Comparing compound and simple words, a significant difference in the average mora duration between the two groups was observed. Specifically, the average mora duration and the duration of the boundary mora in compound words were longer compared to simplex words, suggesting that morphological structure is correlated with speech information. Furthermore, when comparing the phoneme length of words with morphological left-headed compounds and right-headed compounds, it was found that words with left-headed compounds are more likely to incorporate longer durations and pauses at morphological boundaries, providing evidence of the correspondence between morphological structure and acoustic information.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は語形成と韻律情報の交互作用を検証し、言語の普遍性と言語内変異を理解する上での新たな理論モデルを提供する。日本語母語話者を対象に実験を実施し、アクセントの主観的評価と、産出実験の分析を通じて、形態的複雑性が話者の語形成メカニズムと実際の音声情報にどう影響するかを明らかにしようとした。また、オンライン実験を利用することも、コロナ以降の研究環境において新たな方法論的可能性を示している。