论文信息 - Predicting Ongoing Global ParadigmOptimization in Voice in Japanese: Corpus-Based OT Analysis

Predicting Ongoing Global ParadigmOptimization in Voice in Japanese: Corpus-Based OT Analysis

In the grammatical category voice in Japanese, an overall morphological change reorganizing the conjugation paradigm is currently underway. The process includes three variable phenomena: saInsertion, ra-Deletion and re-Insertion. This paper gives a unified account as well as a prediction of the ongoing global paradigm optimization in Japanese voice, in light of Probabilistic OT (Boersma and Hayes 2001, among others), employing a large-scale corpus. I employed the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (Maekawa 2004, henceforth CSJ). Firstly, I characterize the chronological change of the distribution of each phenomenon based on the observed data. Secondly, I formalize the changes in OT terms; in turn, I model and predict the change within the framework of Stochastic OT. The results show that the gradient approximation of the ranking values of each constraint caused the emergence and the gradual increase of innovative forms, and that the overall change in voice can be explained by the dynamic interactions of a small set of constraints.

Shin-ichiro Sano | Shin-ichiro Sano

[1] Paul Boersma,et al. Praat: doing phonetics by computer , 2003 .

[2] Charles James Nice Bailey. Variation and linguistic theory , 1973 .

[3] P. Smolensky,et al. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar , 2004 .

[4] Real-time Demonstration of the Change from Above/Below Based on the Corpus Data: Cases of Sa-Insertion, Ra-Deletion, and Re-Insertion in Japanese , 2009 .

[5] K. Matsuda. Dissecting analogical leveling quantitatively: The case of the innovative potential suffix in Tôkyô Japanese , 1993, Language Variation and Change.

[6] Junko Ito,et al. Morphological contrast and merger: ranuki in Japanese , 2004 .

[7] Bernard Bloch,et al. Studies in Colloquial Japanese II Syntax , 1946 .

[8] P. Boersma,et al. Empirical Tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm , 2001, Linguistic Inquiry.

[9] Laura Benua,et al. Transderivational Identity: Phonological Relations Between Words , 2008 .

[10] Shin-ichiro Sano,et al. Real-Time Demonstration of the Interaction among Internal and External Factors in Language Change: A Corpus Study , 2011 .