Testing Japanese loanword devoicing: Addressing task effects

Abstract

In the loanword phonology of Japanese, voiced obstruent geminates ([bb, dd, gg]) have been claimed to devoice when they co-occur with another voiced obstruent within the same morpheme (e.g. /beddo/ → [betto] 'bed'). This devoicing pattern has contributed much to address a number of theoretical issues in the recent phonological literature. However, the relevant data have been primarily based on intuition-based data provided by Nishimura (2003) and Kawahara (2006). Kawahara (2011aKawahara ( , 2011b addressed this issue by conducting rating studies using naive native speakers of Japanese. The results generally supported the intuition-based data by Nishimura (2003) and Kawahara (2006). However, the rating studies also revealed several aspects of the devoicing pattern that go beyond the intuition-based data as well.The current study further investigates the devoicing pattern by varying several task variables. In particular, this paper builds on Kawahara (2011a, 2011b) by adding (i) nonce word stimuli, (ii) a binary yes/no experiment, and (iii) auditory stimuli. The results show that (i) nonce words and real words behave similarly, but nonce words nevertheless show less variability across different grammatical conditions than real words; (ii) the binary yes/no experiment shows results similar to those of the scale-based experiment; and (iii) while auditory stimuli yield results comparable with those of orthographic stimuli, they also show an exaggerated effect of a phonetic implementation pattern. Overall, this paper uses Japanese as a case study, and finds some task effects in phonological judgment experiments. It is hoped that this paper stimulates further experimental research on phonological judgments of other phenomena in Japanese as well as in other languages. 1 The experiments reported in this paper were first reported in a longer manuscript circulated in Introduction The phenomenon

Constraint cumulativity in phonotactics: evidence from artificial grammar learning studies

“…Pater notes that, while speakers tolerate unrepaired voiced obstruents and geminate consonants when adapting loanwords, they prefer to repair words which contain voiced geminates by devoicing them. Kawahara (2011a, b, 2013) tests this formal analysis with a series of acceptability-judgement studies, and finds robust support for Pater's conclusions. Kawahara (2012) also finds experimental evidence that Lyman's Law violations can block a voicing alternation in the native Japanese lexicon known as rendaku , which is triggered by compound formation (this is a further case of apparent cumulativity, supporting observations made by Itô & Mester 1986).…”

Geminate Devoicing in Japanese Loanwords: Theoretical and Experimental Investigations

“…Importantly, there was no clear line that divides the continuum into two categories, ‘grammatical devoicing’ and ‘ungrammatical devoicing’, contra what Nishimura () and Kawahara () claimed. This non‐dichotomous distinction among the four conditions is observed even when the participants used a binary yes/no response format in a follow‐up experiment (Kawahara ).…”

“…The left figure shows a singleton [d]; the right figure shows a geminate [dd]. Tokens based on Kawahara (). This figure is reproduced with the permission from de Gruyter.…”

“…To address these concerns, a series of judgment studies have been run using naive native speakers (Kawahara , , ). To take Kawahara () as an example for illustration, the experiment asked the participants to rate the naturalness of devoicing in four contexts: (1) OCP‐violating geminates (/d…dd/), (2) non‐OCP‐violating geminates (/…dd/), (3) OCP‐violating singletons (/d…d/), and (4) non‐OCP‐violating singletons (/…d/).…”