A Corpus-Based Study of Geminate Devoicing in Japanese: The Role of the OCP and External Factors

Nishimura (2003, 2006) pointed out that in Japanese loanwords, voiced obstruent geminates can optionally devoice when they co-occur with another voiced obstruent (e.g. /doggu/ → (dokku) 'dog'). �怀 is devoicing pattern has been analyzed within a number of theoretical frameworks, and has thereby contributed to address several theoretical issues. �怀 e pattern, moreover, has been studied in several experimental, judgment-based studies. However, there are only a few studies on actual production data. Furthermore, all of the previous studies have generally assumed that the devoicing pattern under question is a sociolin- guistically monolithic phenomenon. �怀 is paper addresses these two issues. By studying the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (Kokuritsu-Kokugo-Kenkyuujo 2008), we �耀 rst con�耀 rm the previous claim that the OCP makes devoicing of geminates more likely in actual production data. Moreover, the results also reveal that many external, sociolinguistic factors a�耀 ect the applicability of devoicing. �怀 e overall results thus contribute to the deeper understanding of the phenom- enon by revealing various hitherto unnoticed factors that a�耀 ect the applicability of devoicing.*

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