Vowel devoicing and the loss of lexical accent in Tokyo Japanese

1998 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 2889-2890
Author(s):  
Mafuyu Kitahara
Keyword(s):  
Tokyo Japanese ◽  
Vowel Devoicing ◽  
Lexical Accent

Assessing surface phonological specification through simulation and classification of phonetic trajectories

Phonology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A. Shaw ◽  
Shigeto Kawahara
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Space ◽  
Movement Trajectories ◽  
Electromagnetic Articulography ◽  
Unseen Data ◽  
Tokyo Japanese ◽  
Frequency Components ◽  
Surface Representations ◽  
Vowel Devoicing ◽  
Empirical Material

Many previous studies have argued that phonology may leave some phonetic dimensions unspecified in surface representations. We introduce computational tools for assessing this possibility though simulation and classification of phonetic trajectories. The empirical material used to demonstrate the approach comes from electromagnetic articulography recordings of high-vowel devoicing in Japanese. Using Discrete Cosine Transform, tongue-dorsum movement trajectories are decomposed into a small number of frequency components (cosines differing in frequency and amplitude) that correspond to linguistically meaningful signal modulations, i.e. articulatory gestures. Stochastic generators of competing phonological hypotheses operate in this frequency space. Distributions over frequency components are used to simulate (i) the vowel-present trajectories and (ii) the vowel-absent trajectories. A Bayesian classifier trained on simulations assigns posterior probabilities to unseen data. Results indicate that /u/ is optionally produced without a vowel-height specification in Tokyo Japanese and that the frequency of such targetlessness varies systematically across phonological environments.

scholarly journals Durational Evidence That Tokyo Japanese Vowel Devoicing Is Not Gradient Reduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Tanner ◽  
Morgan Sonderegger ◽  
Francisco Torreira
Keyword(s):  
Tokyo Japanese ◽  
Vowel Devoicing

scholarly journals Is discourse made up of sentences? Focusing on dependent grafted speech in modern standard Japanese

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-180
Author(s):  
Toshiyuki Sadanobu
Keyword(s):  
High Tone ◽  
The Status ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Modern Standard ◽  
Lexical Accent

Abstract The idea that discourse is made up of sentences has been widespread among linguists. Does this traditional discourse perspective (“sententialism”) apply to casual language in daily communication? This paper examines the validity of sententialism by focusing on a type of speech called “dependent grafted speech” in Japanese conversation. Close examinations of various words, phrases, and sentences reveal that dependent grafted speech is different from sentences on two points: (i) Generally, the lexical accent of the copula at the beginning of dependent grafted speech is a high tone; and (ii) the interaction particle at the end of dependent grafted speech is not uttered with a falling intonation unless it is proceeded by a very abrupt rising intonation (“leaping” intonation). These findings cast doubt on the status of dependent grafted speech as a sentence. Moreover, they demonstrate a new conception of discourse as a mixture of diverse constituents, including sentences, dependent grafted speech, and other utterance types.

scholarly journals An explanation for phonological word-final vowel shortening: Evidence from Tokyo Japanese

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Satsuki Nakai
Keyword(s):  
Short Vowel ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Phonological Word ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Tokyo Japanese ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cross

AbstractThis paper offers an account for the cross-linguistic prevalence of phonological word-final vowel shortening, in the face of phonetic final lengthening, also commonly observed across languages. Two contributing factors are hypothesized: (1) an overlap in the durational distributions of short and long vowel phonemes across positions in the utterance can lead to the misidentification of phonemic vowel length and (2) the direction of bias in such misidentification is determined by the distributional properties of the short and long vowel phonemes in the region of the durational overlap. Because short vowel phonemes are typically more frequent in occurrence and less variable in duration than long vowel phonemes, long vowel phonemes are more likely to be misidentified than short vowel phonemes. Results of production and perception studies in Tokyo Japanese support these hypotheses.

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