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Perception and Production of Geminate and Single Consonants by Learners of Japanese Language.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Uchida, Ayumi |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Abstract | 2. Literature review 2.1 What is a geminate? The Japanese consonant system includes the geminate, which is phonologically transcribed as [Q] and it is one of the most indispensable features to explain Japanese phonology. In general, there are four environments in which geminates occur. First, verb inflections trigger the appearance of geminates. When a verb stem ends with /t/, /r/, or /w/, and a suffix whose first sound is /t/ is attached to it, the suffix /t/ changes into the geminate /tt/. Geminates also appear in words of Sino-Japanese origin (e.g., [kekka] ‘result’). Geminates also occur in contractions of native expressions in Japanese (e.g., katippuri < katihuri ‘a manner of winning’). Another environment in which geminates are observed is in loan words (Shibatani, 1990). The contrasts between geminates and single consonants play a significant role in the Japanese language in the above-mentioned environments as well as other environments and the failure to produce and identify the distinction has a possibility to cause miscommunication. Then, how do native Japanese speakers distinguish the difficult geminate and single consonant contrasts? Bechman (1982) measured the lengths of the geminates and single consonants produced by native Japanese speakers. Her study revealed that the mean ratio between geminates and single consonants is 2.5:1 when voice onset time (VOT) is included and 2.79:1 when VOT is not included. In her study, she denies the mora theory, but her findings indicate native Japanese speakers distinguish the contrast between geminates and single consonants by controlling the length of a word. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED504696.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
