Shigeto Kawahara

Within the framework of optimality theory (Prince & Smolensky 2004), Steriade (2001a,b) proposes the P-map hypothesis, whose fundamental tenet is that the rankings of faithfulness constraints are grounded in perceptual-similarity rankings. This article provides empirical support for this hypothesis. In Japanese loanword phonology, a voiced geminate, but not a singleton, devoices to dissimilate from another voiced obstruent within a single stem. Based on this observation, I argue that the [+

This chapter provides an overview of how experimental work has informed phonological theories, and vice versa. This chapter starts with a historical overview; when phonology was being established as its own area of research, there was a sharp division between phonetics and phonology. This division was called into question, and issues concerning the phonetics‐phonology interface are currently being extensively pursued by an approach that is now known as “laboratory phonology”. After this historic

This paper presents a case study of sound symbolism, cases in which certain sounds tend to be associated with particular meanings. We used the corpus of all Japanese Pokémon names available as of October 2016. We tested the effects of voiced obstruents, mora counts, and vowel quality on Pokémon characters' size, weight, strength parameters, and evolution levels. We found that the number of voiced obstruents in Pokémon names correlates positively with size, weight, evolution levels, and general s

Abstract This paper provides an overview of theoretical and experimental investigations into voiced geminates in Japanese. Active discussion was initiated by Nishimura's () discovery that in Japanese loanword phonology, voiced geminates can be devoiced, when they co‐occur with another voiced obstruent (e.g. / d o gg u/ → /do kk u/ ‘dog’). This context‐sensitive devoicing of geminates has been analyzed within several different theoretical frameworks. The phonetic and psycholinguistic natures of v

Abstract This paper addresses the general issue of the quality of phonological data, using rendaku as a case study. Rendaku is a widely-discussed voicing process that accompanies compound formation in Japanese. The issue of the quality of phonological data has been discussed from time to time from various perspectives throughout the history of phonological research, and we are recently witnessing renewed interest in this topic. This paper takes up rendaku as a case study to address this issue. R

Abstract A received wisdom in modern linguistic theories is that the relationships between sounds and meanings are generally arbitrary. However, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that in some cases sounds and meanings have systematic relationships—patterns known as “sound symbolism.” Yet most of these studies are conducted by psychologists, cognitive scientists, or cognitive linguists, and currently, only a few theoretical phonologists pay serious attention to sound symbolism. This

This paper establishes the claim that geminate sonorants are cross-linguistically marked, and furthermore, that the relative sonority of a geminate positively correlates with its markedness, i.e., the universal ranking *GEMGLIDE >> *GEMLIQUID >> *GEMNASAL holds. This ranking is supported by a cross-linguistic survey of geminate inventories (Podesva 2002; Taylor 1985) as well as by a number of phonological alternations. Second, this paper proposes that this markedness hierarchy derive