A Comprehensive Study on the Diversity and Universality of Prosody

这个项目从不同的角度考察了日语和其他语言中韵律结构的各个方面。已经研究的韵律结构的主要方面包括以下几个方面。1.东京日语和其他日语中的单词口音我们对东京、大阪和鹿儿岛的字母缩略语(如NHK、JR、BJM)的口音进行了实地调查，发现各方言中的单词口音与音节结构存在一定的相关性。特别是音节结构在东京和大阪日语中出现无重音的单词，在鹿儿岛日语中出现B型口音。2.言语不流利我们收集和分析了成人口吃者和非口吃者产生的言语不流利的数据。我们发现，两组说话者在出现不流利的语言/语音语境上表现出基本相同的趋势。3.外国学习者日语的语音特征我们收集了外国日语学习者自发产生的语音数据，并分析了其中的元音缩短效应。我们发现缩略效应的产生有多种语言因素的影响。4.言语的声学和知觉特征我们进行了实验，以考察知觉制约是否对日语中去声化动词的出现有影响。日语拟声词的语音结构分析了拟声词的重音结构，并与语义结构与拟声词相似的dvandva复合词进行了比较。我们发现了模仿表情和dvandva表情在重音方面的关键相似之处，以及决定重音的因素。

This project looked at various aspects of prosodic structure in Japanese and other languages from various perspectives. The main aspects of prosodic structure that have been studied include the following. Each heading is followed by results of research in that particular area.1.Word accent in Tokyo Japanese and other Japanese dialectsWe conducted fieldwork on the accent of alphabetic acronyms (e.g. NHK, JR, BJM) in Tokyo, Osaka and Kagoshima, and found that that there exists a certain correlation between word accent and syllable structure in each dialect. Particularly, syllable structure is responsible for the emergence of unaccented words in Tokyo and Osaka Japanese and B-type accent in Kagoshima Japanese.2.Speech disfluencyWe collected and analyzed speech disfluency data produced by both adult stutteres and non-stutterers. We discovered that both groups of speakers exhibit basically the same tendency with respect to the linguistic/phonetic contexts where disfluencies occur.3.Phonetic features of Japanese spoken by foreign learnersWe collected spontaneous speech data produced by foreign learners of Japanese and analyzed vowel shortening effects involved. We discovered that there are several linguistic factors that are responsible for the shortening effects.4.Acoustic and perceptual properties of speechWe carried out experiments to see if there is an effect of perceptual constraints on the occurrence of devoiced moras in Japanese. We obtained positive results to this hypothesis.5.Phonological structure of mimetic expressions in JapaneseWe analyzed the accent structure of mimetic expressions and compared it with that of dvandva compounds, which have similar semantic structure to mimetic expressions. We discovered crucial similarities between mimetic and dvandva expressions with respect to their accentuation as well as factors that determine it.