A study on prosody around syllables containing Sokuon and its sound-symbolic property

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370437
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: NASU Akio 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (00294174)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 促音 / プロソディ / オノマトペ / ピッチ / 音声学 / 音韻論 / 日本語

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The present study deals with prosodic characteristics of what is called‘word-final Sokuon', which has been supposed to appear at the end of mimetic stems. This study particularly focuses on the manner of pitch movement around a word-final syllable and its perceptional properties. The experiments conducted in the study have revealed that the prosodic pattern with rising pitch movement is responsible for perception of Sokuon in the word-final position, and that sound-symbolism accompanying the word-final Sokuon is expressed by means of pitch control. On the basis of these findings, this study makes a novel analysis whereby the‘word-final Sokuon' is not a substantial entity such as a phoneme or a morpheme but serves as an orthographic practice for visualizing particular prosody that involves rising pitch movement around word-final position.

Free Research Field

音声学・音韻論