2019/9/23

玉岡 賀津雄TAMAOKA, Katsuo

Psycholinguistic Study on Japanese
Sentence Processing

Ph.D. at the University of
Saskatchewan in Canada(psycholinguistics, specialized inlexical processing)Supervisor: C. K. Leong

Hunan University
Changsha, China

TAMAOKA, Katsuo
Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University, Japanktamaoka@gc4.so-net.ne.jp; http://tamaoka.org/

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Language
LinguaLinguistic Inquiry
Journal of Japanese Linguistics
Journal of Quantitative
Linguistics

言語研究

心理言語学
(psycholinguistics)

言語学

linguistics

Movement

Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
Journal of Experimental
Psychology:
Learning, Memory andCognition
Psychological Research
PLoS ONERuth met Tim.

Who did
met Trace
who. ?
d Ruth meet(gap)
Wh-movement

心理学研究

Journal of Neurolinguistics
Applied Psycholinguistics
Language and Speech
Journal of Psycholinguistic
Research心理学

dodo-support

psychology

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誰
ルースが ティムに会いました。
か。

Who did Ruth meet ?

Ruth-gaS

Who did Ruth meet gap ?

RuthS

gap-filling parsing

ai-ma-sita.
V

met
V

Tim.
O

wh-in-situ

e.g., Frazier & Clifton, 1989

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Tim-niO

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Kenji ate a cake .
a cake

Kenji
ケンジが

ケーキを

ate.
gap
ケーキを

食べた。

ケーキを

gap
ケンジが ケーキを
食べた。

移動操作

空所補充解析

movement operation

gap-filling parsing

scrambling
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scrambling

My brother ate a cake.

is not obligatory.
is

IP (inflectional phrase)

optional.

[弟がケーキを食べる]た。 ta
弟がケーキを食べた。
TP (tense phrase)

Scrambling in Japanese is widely regarded as an
optional rule (e.g., Fukui, 1993; Saitō, 1985;
Saitō and Fukui, 1985; Takano, 1998).

我哥哥 VP吃了 NP蛋糕。

NP

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Flexible Word Order

Flat structure by
Nakayama (1995) and Yamashita (1997)

Hanko-ga
Taro-onagutta.
Hanako-NOM Taro-ACC hit-PAST
Hanako hit Taro.

Hanako hit Taro.

NP-NOM

Taro-oTaro-ACC

verb

Hanako-ga
nagutta.
Hanako-NOM hit-PAST
NP-ACC

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NP-ACCNP-NOM

verb

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The self-paced
reading

Is there any evidence
for flat structure?

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弟が

ケーキを

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食べた。

My brothera cake

eat.

弟が

ケーキを

食べた。

reading time
(RT1)

reading time
(RT2)

reading time
(RT3)

The self-paced reading17

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A participant is required to read a sentence one part at atime. When the participant is finished reading a cue part,
they press a key (Just, Carpenter and Woolley 1982).
The duration between key presses is interpreted as thereading time for each part.
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The self-paced reading

Flat structure• This method is illuminates how complex and/or
ambiguous sentences are processed (e.g., Ferreira andHenderson 1991, MacDonald, Just and Carpenter
1992). For instance, Ferreira and Henderson (1991)
used self-paced reading to show the process ofrecovery from misanalysed garden-path
sentences
garden-path sentences.

Nakayama (1995) and Yamashita (1997) conducted
on-line sentence processing experiments using theself-paced reading method, which did not finddifferences in reading times between canonical andscrambled sentences.

The complex houses married andsingle soldiers and their families.

Nakayama (1995) and Yamashita (1997) used thisevidence to argue for a flat structure in nominative
NP-ga and accusative NP-o construction.

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Flat strucuter = no gap-filling parsing

Is that true that Japanese language does nothave a configurational syntactic structure?

Sakamoto (2001) further elaborated on
the results of Nakayama (1995) andYamashita (1997), noting that sincecase particles are attached to all nouns
in Japanese, clear identifications are
given to functions of nouns.
Consequently, scrambled word order does not require an
extra cognitive load for sentence parsing. Given thisargument, the assumption of flat structure does notinitiate the gap-filling parsing.

What is a gap-filling parsing?

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Base Structure
Japanese ＳＯＶCanonical Sentence Structure(transitive verb, no scrambling)

S

John ate an apple.

S[S NP-ga [VP NP-o V(Past)]]Subject

NP

VP

Base-generated

NP-ga

VP

Hanako-ga
John-ga

ObjectNPV(1) base-structure of SOV

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NP-o

V

Taro-oringo-onaguttatabe-ta(i) Canonical Order24

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S

JapaneseS

A gap filling paring

ChineseS[S NP-oi [S’ NP-ga [VP ti V]]
NP

VP

NP

VP
NP-o

NP

NP+V

V

V

V+NP

S

リンゴを
Ringo-oNP

NP-ga

Japanese base-structure
日本語の基底構造

Chinese base-structure
中国語の基底構造

VP

ジョンがJohn-gaNP-oParameter setting

A gap-filling parsing

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gap

gap

V

tabe-ta
食べた。

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scrambling effect(s)canonical
scrambled

The scrambling effect is manifested
as a delay in processing time, incomparison with the (assumed)
canonical order baseline.

If scrambling is the result of phrasal movement based on
canonical order, sentences with a scrambled order should
require extra resources for sentence processing (heavier
cognitive loading).
（e.g., Miyamoto & Takahashi, 2004; Tamaoka et al., 2005, 2013）
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Problems of the self-paced reading• Consider the sentence ‘Michael ate sushi.’ First, ‘Michael’appears on the screen, and the participant reads it and press
the key. Then, the past-tense verb ‘ate’ appears, and again,
the participant presses the key, and ‘sushi’. This three-beataction is all that is required for processing a simple threephrase sentence. Native speaker can read this sentencemuch faster than they can press keys on a keyboard. This
produces three equal reading times – each one as long as it
takes the participant to press a keyboard. Thus, self-paced
reading is not ideal for measuring simple sentences, like atransitive sentence containing only three phrases.

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29• Self-paced reading predominately locks participants’reading to a certain region. It does not allow aparticipant to read backwards to check previously readphrases. As a result, participants must store all theprevious information about a sentence in their memory
before processing each part.
• Some studies (e.g., Ferreira and Henderson 1991,
Koornneef and Van Berkum 2006) show on assumed
effect on the word just after the critical word. Thistendency is called spill-over.
• The motion of pressing the key to read forward phraseby phrase cannot be easily stopped, because a shortterm memory is fully occupied by accumulated
information withdrawn from the on-going processing ofa sentence. This tendency is also likely to flatten reading
times of phrases measured by self-paced reading. 30

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What can we learn from theJapanese language?
Because we are investigating simple
transitive sentences, the self-paced
reading method was not suitable forinvestigating the scrambling effect inJapanese.
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Processing Japanese scrambling

Reaction time paradigm

Tamaoka, K., Sakai, H., Kawahara, J., Miyaoka,
Y., Lim, H., & Koizumi, M. (2005). Priority
information used for the processing ofJapanese sentences: Thematic roles, caseparticles or grammatical functions? Journal of
Psycholinguistic Research, 34, 273-324.
Processing Japanesecanonical and scrambled sentences
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Stimulus sentences in Experiment 1(1) Canonical active sentence (SOV)
Otooto-ga
keeki-otabe-ta.
Brother-NOM a cake-ACC eat-PAST‘My brother ate a cake.’(2) Scrambled active sentence (OSV)
Keeki-ootooto-ga
tabe-ta.
A cake-ACC brother-NOM eat-PAST

Processing active sentenceswith transitive verbs

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Sentence correctness decision task

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弟がケーキを食べた。

No

カエルが空を投げた。

Yes

No

Yes

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ケーキを弟が食べた。

Accuracy (%)
Reaction Time (RT)
Onset of thesentence

No

Press the Yes
or No bottom.

Yes
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Results of Experiment 1 in the bar-graphResults of Experiment 1

Reaction times (RTs)

Error rates (%)⊿ 223 ms

⊿ 6.05 %Table 1 Correctness decision for Japanese sentences with two-argument verbs
Response Sentence
Reaction Time (ms)Error Rate (%)
Type
Type
M
SD
M
SD
'Yes'
SOV
1209
238
3.02%
3.37%
Responses
OSV
1432
308
9.07%
6.96%
OSV-SOV⊿ 223 F 1 ***, F 2 ***⊿ 6.04% F 1 ***, F 2 ***
'No'
SOV
1297
224
4.91%
6.96%
Responses
OSV
1388
216
9.38%
9.95%
OSV-SOV⊿ 91 F 1 ***, F 2 n.s.
⊿ 4.47% F 1 n.s., F 2 n.s.
Note : 28 subjects and 52 items for 'Yes' responses while 28 subjects and 32 items for'No' responses.

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Findings of Experiment 1• Experiment 1 found a scrambling effect for active
transitive sentences (for correct ‘Yes’ responses).
• The Gap-filling parsing might lead to longer
reaction times for scrambled sentences versus
canonical sentences.
• The parsing process for scrambled sentences
resulted in higher error rates for scrambled
sentences than canonical ones.

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Processing active sentenceswith ditransitive verbs

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Scrambled Active Sentenceswith Ditransitive Verbs

Canonical Active Sentenceswith Ditransitive Verbs
Hanako returned Taro a book.

S[S NP-ga [VP NP-ni [VP NP-o V]]]

Subject
NP-ga[S NP-oi [S’ NP-ga [VP NP-ni [V’ ti NP-o V]]]]S

Direct Object
Inanimate NP-o

VP

A gap-filling parsing

S

hon-o

Hanako-ga

Indirect Object
Animate NP-ni
Taro-ni

NP-ga

V'

Direct Object

Verb

Inanimate NP-o

V

hon-o

kaesitaLonger Distance
Scrambling

VP

Hanako-ga
Animate NP-ni

V'

Taro-ni
Inanimate NP-o
A gap-filling parsing

gap

gap

(i) Canonical Order(ii) Scrambled Order

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ケンジがカナエに花を贈った。

No

花をケンジがカナエに贈った。

No

Yes
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V
kaesita

Yes
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Results of Experiment 2 in the bar-graphResults of Experiment 2

Reaction times (RTs)

Error rates (%)⊿ 604 ms

⊿ 10.00 %Table
Japanese sentences
sentences with
with three-argument
three-argumentverbs
verbs
Table 3 Correctness decision for Japanese
Response
Time (ms)(ms)
ErrorRate
Rate(%)(%)
Response Sentence
Reaction Time
Error
Type
Type
M
SD
M
SD
SD
M
SD
'Yes'
SOOV
320
1.79%
3.90%
1359
320
1.79%
3.90%
Responses
OOSV
643
11.79%
17.44%
Responses
1963
643
11.79%
17.44%OOSV-SOOV***, FF22 ****** ⊿⊿10.00%10.00% FF11 **,**,FF22 ******⊿ 604 F 11 ***,
'No'
SOOV
265
1.79%
4.76%
1436
265
1.79%
4.76%
Responses
OOSV
1597
398
4.29%
10.34%
Responses
398
4.29%
10.34%OOSV-SOOV⊿ 161 F 11 ***,***, FF22 ****⊿⊿2.50%
2.50% FF11 n.s.,n.s.,FF22 n.s.
n.s.
Note
Note : 28 subjects and 20 items for both
both 'Yes''Yes' andand 'No''No' responses.
responses.

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Difference between Experiment 1 and 2

Longer Distance Scrambling

A gap-filling parsing[S ecsub [VP NP-o …]][S NP-o1 [S NP-ga [VP gap1 …]]]

[S NP-o1 [S NP-ga [VP NP-ni [V’ gap1 V]]]51

• Processing time: A difference between canonicaland scrambled order in ditransitive verbs had themean of 604 milliseconds, much longer than themean of 223 milliseconds for transitive verbs.
• This difference in processing time was produced
by differences in the distance of the scrambling：
Ditransitive sentences involved longer distancescrambling; transitive sentence involved shorter
distance scrambling.

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Next question

Configurational syntactic structure

What kind of information
cues do native Japanese
speakers use for identifying
canonical noun order?

• Experiments 1 and 2 supported the existence ofscrambling effects in Japanese: consequently,
Japanese does not have flat structure.
• Several linguists (e.g., Hoji, 1985; Miyagawa,
1989; Saito, 1985; Saito and Hoji, 1983 forJapanese; Mahajan, 1990; Muller and Wolfgang,1994; Webelhuth, 1989) have suggested that an
instance of phrasal movement can result in freenoun phrase order phenomena.
• This is called a configurational syntactic structure.

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Remember, Sakamoto (2001) said
that case particles attached to allnouns give clear identifications tofunctions of nouns.

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2019/9/23(2) case particles(1) thematic roles

Case particles in a noun phrase provide
relations between a predicate (verb)
and noun phrases.
In Japanese, the particle –ga assigns anoun phrase nominative while –oassigns an accusative.
An 弟が (my brother) with thenominative case –ga precedes a ケーキ
を (a cake) with the accusative case -o.
This is also true for the dative case –ni.

An agent precedes a theme.
弟がケーキを食べた。
（My brother ate a cake.）
An agent 弟が (my brother)precedes a theme ケーキを (acake) in this active sentence.
agent theme

-ga が

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–ni に

–o を

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(3) grammatical functions

弟がケーキを食べた。
（My brother ate a cake.）

The subject precedes the object.

Three are three cues for identifying Japanesecanonical word order in active sentences:

We assume that grammatical functions
are not primitive notions, rather they
are defined in terms of syntactic
configurations (see Chomsky, 1981).
The subject is the spec of the sentence.

(1) thematic roles,(2) case particles,(3) grammatical functions.
i.e., My brother proceeds a cake.

The subject 弟 (my brother) precedes theobject ケーキ.
subject

The next experiments will determine priority
information used for native Japanese speakers.

object57

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Experiment 4

Experiment 3

Case Particles versus Thematic Roles
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Passive sentences‘Taro was hit by Keiko.’ Prediction of canonical order
Case Particles
versusThematic
Roles

Thematic roles:
Keiko-niTaro-ganagurare-ta.
NP(Keiko)-DAT NP(Taro)-NOM V-Past (was hit)
agent

theme (patient)In passive sentences with transitive verbs, thematicroles and case markers provided a conflicting word
order.
In passive sentences, the nominative case particle -ga
comes before the dative case particle -ni (i.e., caseparticles) while the agent comes after the theme (i.e.,thematic roles).

Case particles:
Taro-ga
Keiko-ninagurare-ta.
NP(Taro)-NOM NP(Keiko)-DAT V-Past (was hit)-ga (nominative)-ni (dative)

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Results of Experiment 3
ケイコにケンジが殴られた。

No

Yes
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The results of Experiment 3 indicated that canonicalorders established by case particles were more quickly
and accurately identified than scrambled order.

Results of Experiment 3 in the bar-graph
Reaction times (RTs)⊿ 201 ms

Error rates (%)

S

NP-ga

⊿ 4.40 %VP

Canonical order ofpassive sentences
established bycase particles

Taro-ga
Taro-ga
NP-ni

Keiko-ni
Hanako-ni

65Vnagurareta

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Experiment 4

Case particle

Case particles versus Grammatical Functions

✕
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Potential sentences

Prediction of canonical order• There are a specific kind of sentences that takedative (DAT) subject.
• A noun with the dative case particle –ni is the
subject in potential sentences (Harada, 1977;
Shibatani, 1978; Ura, 1999).
• An example of a potential sentence is Hanako-ni
eigo-ga hanaseru-daroo-ka? (‘Can Hanako speak
English?’).

Grammatical functions:
Hanako-ni
Eigo-gahanaseru(+darou-ka).
NP(Hanako)-DAT NP(English)-NOM (can speak +?)‘Can Hanako speak English?’subject
object69

Case Particles:
Eigo-ga
Hanako-ni
hanaseru(+darouka).
NP(English)-NOM NP(Hanako)-DAT (can speak +?)nominative
detive70

Results of Experiment 4
ハナコに英語が話せるだろうか。
Table 6 Correctness decision for Japanese possible sentence with two-argument verbs
Response
Sentence
Reaction Time (ms)Error Rate (%)
Type
Type
M
SD
M
SD
'Yes'
SOV
1326
299
4.17%
7.37%
Responces
OSV
1542
366
29.86%
24.93%OSV-SOV216
F 1 ***, F 2 ***25.69%
F 1 ***, F 2 ***
'No'
SOV
1586
349
5.90%
6.72%
Responces
OSV
1602
318
7.99%
8.33%
OSV-SOV16
F 1 n.s., F 2 n.s.
2.08%
F 1 n.s., F 2 n.s.
Note : 24 subjects and 36 items for 'Yes' responses while 24 subjects and 20 items for'No' responses.

No

Yes
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Potential sentences with word order established bygrammatical functions had shorter reading times andlower error rates than potential sentences with word
order established by case particles.
S

Results of Experiment 4 in the bar-graph
Reaction times (RTs)

Error rates (%)

NP (Subject)⊿ 25.69 %VP

Hanako-ni
Hanako-ni(Dative Case)
NP-o (Object)⊿ 216 ms73

V

eigo-ga
Eigo-go(Nominative Case)

hanaseru (+darooka)✕

Grammatical
functions

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Potential sentences with word order established bygrammatical functions had shorter reading times andlower error rates than potential sentences with word
order established by case particles.
S

NP-ni

VP

Canonical order of potential
sentences defined bygrammatical functions

Hanako-ni
Hanako-ni
NP-ga

Veigo-gaeigo-gahanaseru(+darooka)

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Grammatical functions
Table Possible Explanations for Scrambling Effects through Five Experiments
Purpose ofExperiments
Scrambling
Effects

Priority
Information

Thematic Roles Case Particles

Grammatical
FunctionsExp. #

Sentence Types

Exp. 1

Active Sentences withTransitive Verbs

X

X

X

Exp. 2

Active Sentences withDitransitive Verbs

X

X

X

Exp. 3Passive Sentences withTransitive Verbs

Excluded

X

X

Exp. 4

Potential Sentences

ExcludedXX

Sunning up
the Exp 1-4
Neither thematic roles nor case particles
can provide fully satisfactory information
for canonical order, and only grammatical
functions offer plausible information in all
active, passive and potential sentences.

Note: X refers to a possible explanation for the sentence processing.

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A head-final
language

Next question

Exactly when and how is gap-fillingparsing initiated?

Verb

Verb

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Wait-and-see model• Since grammatical function is usuallydependent on the type of predicates, native
speakers sometime cannot determine thecorrect grammatical function of nounphrases until the end of sentence in a headfinal language like Japanese.

Since the sentence-correctness decision
paradigm does not give decisive information
about the timing of gap-filling operations, we will
investigate this possibility as an avenue for the
next eye-tracking technique.

The wait-and-see model provides
an explanation for the sentence
processing mechanism of headfinal languages: that is simply wait
until seeing the ending verb.

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Eye-tracking

Eye-tracking

EyeLink 1000
(1 millisecond of measurement)

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Eye Tracking

Eye Tracking

ケンジをナオコが励ました 。

ケンジをナオコが励ました 。
fixation

saccade

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ケンジを

ナオコが

励ました

Region 1

Region 2

Regions 3

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Indexes

ケンジを

ナオコが

励ました。

Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

Early measurements(1) First-fixation time(2) First-pass time

1
1+2

3
3+4

7
7+8
7+8+9+10+11+12

Late measurements(3) Go-past time

Not applicable

3+4+5+6(4) Re-reading time

5+10

6+9

11+12

(5) Regression-out(6) Regression-in

Not applicableYes (4 to 5 / 9 to 10)

Yes (4 to 5 / 9 to 10)
Yes (8 to 9)

Yes (8 to 9)
Not applicable

1+2+5+10

3+4+6+9

7+8+11+12

Total measurements(7) Dwell time

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TAMAOKA, Katsuo
Nagoya University

MANSBRIDGE, P. Michael
Nagoya University
Eye tracking of scrambled active sentences

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弟がケーキを 食べた。

× ×

ケーキを

弟が

食べた。

Kenji -o/-ga

Naoko-o/-ga

ケンジがナオコを 励ました。

ケンジをナオコが 励ました。

encouraged

OK

You cannot directly compare twophrases in the same region.

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Experiment 5 used simple SOV and OSV
active sentences with two high-frequency firstname proper nouns (e.g., Kenta, Naoko) anda verb.

Pre-head processing

Although some degree of the pre-headprocessing is involved in the processing ofscrambled sentences in Japanese, theagreement information from the head verb
will play an important role in forming the final
syntactic structure.

Re-reading time
Regression-in
Head-driven processing

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canonical

short-distancelong-distanceEye tracking of scrambled orderin complex sentences
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A canonical SOV-ordered intransitive sentence embedded
in a complex sentence displays two consequential NPNOMs or two subjects. In such a case, since the second
NP-NOM indicates the clause boundary between themain and subordinate clauses, the second NP-NOM slows
down to establish the clause boundary (Miyamoto 2002).

A short distance scrambling
within an embedded clauseNP-ga NP-ga

Re-reading time

NP-ga

NP-ga

Head-driven processing

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98

A long distance scrambling
within an embedded clause

Experiment 6 demonstrated that neither first-passtime nor go-past time significantly differed between
canonical and short-distance scrambling.

Pre-head processing

clause boundary
NP-ga NP-ga

Re-reading timeThus, the detection delay for the clause boundaries(Miyamato 2002) might require little processing
effort, at least during early stage processing.

Regression-in
Head-driven processing

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Investigation(e.g., experiment)

Without semantic cues, Japanese speakers
mostly used verb information to establish thestructural properties of scrambled constituents.
onsequently, the relative strength of pre-headand head-driven processing varies dependingon the cues available

Assumption

Research

Theoreticaldevelopment
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Thank you for listening to my talk.
ご清聴ありがとうございました謝謝收聽!

玉岡 賀津雄 TAMAOKA, Katsuo

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