Journal of Psycholinguistic Researchhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09843-1

Parallelism Between Sentence Structure and Nominal
Phrases in Japanese: Evidence from Scrambled Instrumental
and Locative Adverbial Phrases
Katsuo Tamaoka1,2· Takane Ito3 · Michael P. Mansbridge4

Accepted: 25 January 2022
© The Author(s) 2022

Abstract
The present study investigated the canonical position of instrumental and locative adverbial
phrases in both Japanese sentences and noun phrases to determine whether the canonicalpositions are parallel. A series of sentence/phrase decision tasks were used to compare sentences with different word-orders, including sentences with SAdvOV (S is subject phrase,
Adv adverb, O object phrase and V verb), AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV word orders.
SAdvOV word order was found to be the most quickly processed, for both instrumental
adverbial (Experiment 1) and locative adverbial phrases (Experiment 2). Thus, the canonical position for these adverbial phrases is identified as the position immediately preceding the object (Theme argument). This finding was replicated when the same experimental methods were applied to event-denoting noun phrases. Adverbial adjuncts in the initial
position (AdvON, N is noun phrase) were processed more quickly and accurately thannoun phrases with adverbial phrases in the second position (OAdvN), for both instrumental adverbial (Experiment 3) and locative adverbial phrases (Experiment 4). Therefore, theposition immediately preceding the object is the canonical position for both instrumental
and locative adverbial phrases in sentences and in noun phrases. In conclusion, this indicates that the base structure of a sentence is shared by its related noun phrase.
Keywords Nominalization · Parallelism · Locative adverbial phrases · Instrumental
adverbial phrases · Canonical order · Scrambling* Katsuo Tamaoka
ktamaoka@gc4.so-net.ne.jp
Takane Ito
ito@boz.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp
1

School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Lushan Road (S), Yuelu District, Changsha City,
Hunan Province 410082, China

2

Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University, Furo‑cho, Chikusaku, Nagoya,
Aichi 464‑8601, Japan

3

Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the University of Tokyo, 3‑8‑1, Komaba,
Meguroku, Tokyo 153‑8902, Japan

4

Research Faculty of Media and Communication, Hokkaido University, Nishi 8‑chome, Kita 17‑jo,
Kitaku, Sappro, Hokaido 060‑0817, Japan

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

Introduction
Some sentences have corresponding noun phrases with no change of fundamental meaning. Taking an example from Chomsky (1970), the active sentence the enemy destroyed
the city corresponds to the noun phrase the enemy’s destruction of the city. Here, thesubject of the noun phrase is marked by the possessive –s and the object of the nounphrase is introduced with the preposition of. This is referred to as ‘nominalization’.
Although the past tense is lost in the noun phrase, both the sentence and the noun phrase
carry essentially the same meaning and have similar elements. In this example, the noun
destruction is a nominal derived from the verb destroy and acts as the head of the whole
noun phrase. Using the genitive case marker –no, nominalization in Japanese is easily
accomplished with relatively free word order. Thus, the word order in Japanese, wherescrambling is allowed in both sentences and noun phrases, is much more flexible thanin English. A study using eye-tracking (Tamaoka & Mansbridge, 2019; Tamaoka et al.,2014) showed longer eye-fixation times for the nominative-marked (-ga) noun phrase
in scrambled sentences of OSgapV (gap refers to the original object position) than in
its counterpart of the accusative-marked (-o) noun phrase in canonical sentences of
SOV. Assuming faster processing times for canonically ordered sentences and possibly
noun phrases compared to scrambled orders, the present study investigated whether thederived noun phrase (i.e., nominalization) has fundamentally the same syntactic structure as its corresponding sentence. More specifically, the present study addressed thisquestion from two perspectives; (1) by attempting to determine the canonical positionof instrumental or locative adverbial phrases in both sentences and noun phrases, andwhen this was clarified, (2) by determining whether the canonical order of a sentencewith an instrumental or a locative adverbial phrase is the same as the canonical order of
its corresponding noun phrase.

A Japanese Sentence and Its Corresponding Noun Phrase and Scrambling
Japanese nominals that can have sentential correlates are formed by adding the genitive
case-marker –no to the postpositional phrase (PP) and noun phrase (NP) within the whole
NP. For instance, a sentence Gakusei-ga yuubin-de zyuken-o moosikon-da, N(student)NOM(-ga) N(post)-P(-de) N(exam)-ACC(-o) V(apply.for)-PAST, ‘The student applied
for the exam by post’ has a corresponding noun phrase Gakusei-no yuubin-de-no zyukenno moosikomi, N(student)-GEN(-no) N(post)-P(-de)-GEN(-no) N(exam)-GEN(-no)
N(application), ‘the student’s application for the exam by post’. In this noun phrase, thenouns gakusei ‘the student’ and zyuken ‘exam’, and the PP consisting of yuubin ‘post’ andthe instrumental postposition –de are marked with the genitive case marker –no. The nominative marker –ga and accusative case marker –o are obligatorily dropped when the genitive case marker –no is added.
Furthermore, Japanese allows flexible word orders in both sentences and noun phrases.
In other words, the aforementioned example sentence can be scrambled to yuubin-de gakusei-ga zyuken-o moosikon-da by moving ­[PP N(post)-P(-de)] to a higher position than [­NP
N(student)-NOM(-ga)]. This sentence has the corresponding noun phrase yuubin-de-no
gakusei-no zyuken-no moosikomi. Like the sentence, this noun phrase allows the order ofgakusei-no ­[NP N(student)-GEN(-no)] and yuubin-de-no ­[PP N(post)-INS(-de)-GEN(-no)]to be shifted, but both those constituents must be marked with the genitive case marker

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research-no. The meaning of the scrambled sentence and its corresponding noun phrase remains
the same.
In psycholinguistic experimental studies on scrambling (e.g., Imamura et al., 2016;
Koizumi & Tamaoka, 2004, 2006, 2010; Mazuka et al., 2002; Miyamoto & Takahashi,
2004; Tamaoka et al., 2005; Tamaoka et al., 2014; Tamaoka & Mansbridge, 2019; Ueno &Kluender, 2003; Witzel & Witzel, 2016), the canonical order of SOV (S is subject phrase,
O object phrase and V verb) was found to be faster to process than the scrambled (i.e.,
different) order of OSV. The delay in processing time between scrambled OSV-orderedsentences and their SOV canonical counterparts is known as the scrambling effect. The
sentence processing model of gap-filling parsing (Frazier & Clifton, 1989; Frazier & Flores D’Arcais, 1989; Frazier, 1987; Stowe, 1986) provides one possible explanation for thedelay with the scrambled OSV order. This scrambling can be explained as a syntactic operation of phrasal movement from the original locus of the object (NP-o) in the canonicalposition to the sentence initial position as in [­ CP NP-o1 ­[IP NP-ga ­[I’ ­[VP gap1 V] I]]] where
IP refers to inflectional phrase and CP to complement phrase. The gap1 indicates the original position in the canonical order from which the NP-o1 was moved to the sentence initial
position. To process the scrambled sentence, native Japanese speakers must recognize theinitial NP-o as the filler, and then find its original position in the specifier of VP (gap1)
to establish the filler-gap dependency. Here, due to the degree of syntactic complexity, acanonical SOV-ordered sentence is expected to be processed more quickly than its OSVordered scrambled counterpart.
Some of the difficulties thought to be associated with scrambling can be explained inpart by limitations in working memory or computational resources (Gibson, 1998), theincreased syntactic complexity of the scrambling operation (Hawkins, 2004), expectationof constituents (Levy, 2008) and discourse contexts (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2004; Yano &Koizumi, 2018). Discourse and frequency effects have been found to modulate the overall scrambling effect such that they can attenuate the processing difficulty (Imamura et al.,2016). The eye-tracking studies (Tamaoka & Mansbridge, 2019; Tamaoka et al., 2014)
clearly indicated longer eye fixation times in the area (noun phrase) assumed to have a gap
and in the area of a head verb under the scrambled condition. In these eye-tacking studies, there were no discourse contexts presented prior to the scrambled sentences. In suchconditions, scrambled sentences seem to result in a heavier cognitive load for processing;scrambling should be the main source of difficulty in processing a single sentence. Using
this nature of the scrambling effect, the present study examines the canonical position of
instrumental and locative adverbial phrases.

Possible Canonical Positions of Multiple Adverbs
Adverbs are optional elements of a sentence, categorized as adjuncts that can be placed invarious positions. Koizumi (1993) classified Japanese adverbs into three types based on
their canonical positions, (1) adverbs in a modal phrase (MP adverbs) such as saiwainimo‘fortunately’, tabun ‘perhaps’, (2) adverbs in an inflection phrase (IP adverbs) such as kinoo‘yesterday’, mukasi ‘once upon a time’, and (3) adverbs in a verb phrase (VP adverbs) suchas konagonani ‘into pieces’, kossori ‘secretly’. Each type of adverb is argued to have acanonical position—i.e., a position it must occupy before scrambling.
Canonical positions of various types of adverbs are identified as follows (Adv refers toadverbs):

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research[MP (MP Adv) ­[IP (IP Adv) Subject (IP Adv) ­[VP (VP Adv) Object (VP Adv) Verb] I] M].
The canonical position of the modal phrase adverb (MP adv) saiwainimo ‘fortunately’is located within the modal phrase as in saiwainimo Kenzi-ga han’nin-o tukamae-ta ‘Fortunately Kenzi caught a criminal’. Temporal adverbs like kinoo ‘yesterday’, kyoo ‘today’,or asita ‘tomorrow’ are classified as the inflectional phrase adverb (IP adv), taking theircanonical positions before or after the subject. For example, the canonical positions of thetime adverb kinoo can be placed either before the subject as in Kinoo Tomoko-ga kami-o
kit-ta ‘Yesterday Tomoko cut her hair’ or after the subject as in Tomoko-ga kinoo kami-o
kit-ta.
According to Koizumi (1993), both manner and resultative adverbs are classified
as verb phrase adverbs (VP adv). There are two possible canonical positions within VP
adverbs (i.e., canonically neutral), either before the object or after the object (before theverb), or SAdvOV and SOAdvV. For example, the canonical position of the resultative
adverb konagonani ‘into pieces’ can be either before the object as in Kenzi-ga konagonani
kabin-o kowasi-ta ‘Kenzi broke the vase into pieces’ or after the object (before the verb)
as in Kenzi-ga kabin-o konagonani kowasi-ta. This claim is supported by an experimental
sentence-processing study by Koizumi and Tamaoka (2006), whose reading-time measurements revealed that the canonical position of manner and resultative adverbs is either SAdvOV or SOAdvV. Furthermore, a corpus study by Namba and Tamaoka (2016) counted
frequencies of adverb occurrences, indicating that manner adverbs showed near equal distribution for 50.0% of SAdvOV and 48.4% of SOAdvV positions. There were only 1.7%in AdvSOV. As with the psycholinguistic study by Koizumi and Tamaoka (2006), manneradverbs appear to be canonically neutral between those two positions. In sentences witha resultative adverb, the corpus frequency of word order is 80.7% for SOAdvV, 18.0% for
SAdvOV, and 1.3% for AdvSOV. Although manner adverbs appear randomly in either the
SAdvOV position or the SOAdvV position, resultative adverbs appear most frequently in
the SOAdvV position. Thus, manner and resultative adverbs may have different canonicalpositions within the VP adverbial position.

Possible Canonical Positions of Instrumental and Locative Adverbial Phrases
The canonical positions of instrumental and locative adverbial phrases have yet to beclearly defined. In fact, Koizumi and Tamaoka (2006) did not investigate instrumental
and locative adverbial phrases ending with -de (i.e., [­PP NP + Postposition(-de)]) in theirinvestigation. These can be placed in three different positions in Japanese sentences: inthe sentence-initial position as in Rimokon-de Tomoko-ga terebi-o kesi-ta ‘Tomoko turned
off the television with remote control’, with the order AdvSOV; in the post-subject position (SAdvOV) as in Tomoko-ga rimokon-de terebi-o kesi-ta; or in the post-object position(SOAdvV) as in Tomoko-ga terebi-o rimokon-de kesi-ta. It is possible, however, to consider the instrumental and locative adverbial PP phrase with –de to have one or two basic
positions. As the first step of such an investigation, the present study examines where thecanonical position of these might be located.
Because these two types of adverbial phrases, instrumental and locative, are generally
taken to modify the whole VP (i.e., the verb and its object without tense) as opposed to IP
including tense, it is assumed that they are at the VP level. The potential canonical position (SAdvOV) is depicted in Fig. 1. There are two examples in Fig. 1. An example of the
instrumental adverbial phrase remokon-de ‘by remote control’ is Tomoko-ga rimokon-de13

Journal of Psycholinguistic ResearchIPI'NP-ga NOM1
Tomoko-ga
NP(Tomoko)-NOM
vP

I
-ta
PAST

t1

v'

VP

v

SPEC

V'

V'

PP
Postposition(-de ) adverbial phrase(INST) rimokon-de 'with a remote control'(LOC) heya-de 'in the room'
NP-o ACC

V

terebi-o 'the TV'

kesi 'turn off'

nimotu-o 'the parcel'

ake ' open'

Fig. 1  The canonical position of instrumental and locative adverbial phrases at the sentence level Note: The
PP refers to the assumed canonical position of the adverb. INST refers to instrumental adverbs and LOC tolocative adverbs

terebi-o kesi-ta ‘Tomoko turned off the television with remote control’. In this sentence,
the adverbial phrase is positioned in the specifier of V’ as the postposition (PP) adverbial
phrase. Likewise, the locative adverb heya-de ‘in the room’ is also found in the same position as Tomoko-ga heya-de mimotu-o ake-ta ‘Tomoko opened the package in the room’.
This SAdvOV canonical order is proposed by Vinka (2009) who claims locatives andinstrumentals in Japanese are similar to the extent that they both take VPs as arguments.
Takezawa (2000; as cited by Ogawa & Niinuma, 2012) claims that locatives and resultatives in Japanese are likely to differ in their ordering in relation to a theme determinerphrase (Theme DP) or the object phrase (O), where the former is likely to precede the13Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

Theme (SAdvOV), and the latter to follow it (SOAdvV) at the VP level (VP adverbs). Prior
to the present experiments, it was tentatively assumed that SAdvOV is the canonical orderfor both instrumental and locative adverbial phrases. Alternatively, the order SOAdvV
is another possibility for the canonical order. However, we hypothesize that SAdvOV iscanonical, and that the order SOAdvV is derived by scrambling.
In both examples in Fig. 2, the final nouns of moosikomi ‘application’ and hanbai ‘sale’
can be considered to have a verb-like argument structure (i.e., have a subject and object), as
in their verb forms of moosikomu ‘to apply’ and hanbaisuru ‘to sell’. Although these nounphrases including instrumental and locative adverbial phrases do not have a subject, they
can be considered equivalent to the (S)AdvOV-ordered sentence shown in Fig. 1. Thus, it isassumed that the noun phrase with adverb-initial position AdvON (N is noun phrase) would
be the canonical order. The same holds for the attested word-order within noun phrases
whose heads have an argument structure. Within the noun phrase in Fig. 2, the instrumental and locative adverbial phrases can be re-ordered as OAdvV as zyuken-no yuusoo-de-no
moosikomi and yasai-no rozyoo-de-no hanbai. In this study, we hypothesize that AdvON is
canonical, and that the order OAdvV is derived by scrambling.
It is also assumed that both instrumental and locative adverbial phrases in noun phrases(PP + the genitive maker -no) are placed in the initial position AdvON as depicted in Fig. 2.
The instrumental adverbial phrase yuusoo-de-no ‘by postal mail’ is located at the specifierof NP or in the beginning of the noun phrase in the AdvON order as Yuusoo-de-no zyukenno moosikomi ‘applying for examination by postal mail’. Likewise, the locative adverbial
phrase rozyoo-de-no ‘on the street’ is also located at the same position of NP specifier as in
Rozyoo-de-no yasai-no hanbai ‘the sale of vegetables on the street’.
Nominalization is a prevalent cross-linguistic feature, and it is heavily featured in Japanese as well (see Kishimoto, 2006; Miyagawa, 2012; Sugioka, 1992). The nominalized
structure may impose the same restrictions on the ordering of elements as a sentential vP
structure. However, it is not yet known whether order (i.e., syntactic position) restrictions
will also be prevalent within the hierarchal structure of an NP or DP in Japanese.

NP

PP

N'

Adverbial phrase: Postposition(-de)-GEN(INST) yuusoo-de-no 'by postal mail'(LOC) rozyoo-de-no 'on the street'
NP-no GENzyuken-no 'for examination'Nmooshikomi 'application'yasai-no 'vegetables'

hanbai 'sale'Fig. 2  The canonical position of instrumental and locative adverbial phrases at the noun phrase level Note:
The PP refers to the assumed canonical position of the adverb. INST refers to instrumental adverbs and
LOC to locative adverbs

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

If native Japanese speakers process the noun phrase in the same manner as they process its corresponding sentence, the scrambling effect should be observed in the processing of an OSV-type of noun phrase as well. This would suggest that the psycholinguistic nature of sentences is shared by their corresponding noun phrases. Instrumental
and locative adverbial phrases are excellent candidates for investigating the parallelismof sentences and their noun phrase counterparts because these adverbial phrases allow
us to directly compare the syntactic structures of sentences and noun phrases. Subject(S) and object (O) cannot be scrambled in a noun phrase and replaced by the genitive.
For instance, the noun phrase, Nihonzin-no siboo-no torisugi, N(Japanese)-GEN N(fat)GEN N(taking-too-much), ‘Too-much eating of fat by Japanese’ does not make sense
once it is scrambled as in *Siboo-no nihonzin-no torisugi, N(fat)-GEN N(Japanese)GEN N(taking-too-much). Hence, the subject phrases must be omitted in investigating
scrambling in NPs. In addition, a sentence with a resultative adverb cannot be nominalized: the sentence Konagona-ni hakai-si-ta, Adv(into-pieces) V(destroy)-PAST,‘(I) destroyed (it) into pieces’ cannot be expressed as an NP *Konagona-e-no hakai,‘destruction into-pieces’. Likewise, a manner adverb used in a sentence has to change
its lexical category, from adverb to adjective, in order to be nominalized: the sentence
Subayaku ootoo-si-ta, Adv(quickly) V(respond)-PAST, ‘I quickly responded (to it)’becomes a noun phrase where ‘response’ is modified by the adjective ‘quick’, as subayai
ootoo, Adj(quick) N(response), ‘a quick response’.
To verify the hypothesis that noun phrases are processed in the same way as sentences, this study investigated the existence of the scrambling effect in both sentences
and noun phrases with different instrumental and locative adverb orders. In the present
study, we conducted four experiments, each relying on the scrambling effect to identify the canonical word order of the structure containing an adverb. These experiments
provide empirical evidence supporting (1) the canonical positions for the instrumental
and locative adverbial phrases as SAdvOV depicted in Fig. 1 at the sentence level andas AdvON in Fig. 2 in the noun phrase and (2) sentences and noun phrases sharing theparallel basic structure (i.e., canonical order).

Experiment 1: Sentences with Instrumental Adverbial Phrases
Experiment 1 tested whether instrumental adverbial phrases have a canonical positionof SAdvOV in sentences with transitive verbs.

MethodParticipants
Twenty-four graduate and undergraduate students (19 females and 5 males) at a university in Japan, all native speakers of Japanese, participated in Experiment 1. The participants were from various academic backgrounds, and their ages ranged from 18 years
and 2 months to 27 years and 8 months. The average age was 21 years and 4 months
with a standard deviation of 2 years and 8 months on the day of testing.

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Journal of Psycholinguistic ResearchMaterials
Stimuli consisted of sentences that included instrumental adverbial phrases in oneof three possible word orders: AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV. These stimuli weredivided into two classes – semantically coherent “Yes” stimuli, and semanticallyanomalous “No” stimuli. To create the “Yes” stimulus sentences, twenty-four sentences with an AdvSOV structure, e.g., Pasokon-de Ziro-ga repooto-o kai-ta ‘Ziro
wrote a report with a personal computer’, had their adverbial phrase positions alteredinto SAdvOV, e.g., Ziro-ga pasokon-de repooto-o kai-ta, and SOAdvV, e.g., Ziro-ga
repooto-o pasokon-de kai-ta. The only difference among the three types of sentences
was the position of adverbial phrase with –de. In the same manner, in the case of the“No” stimuli, 24 sets of semantically infelicitous sentences with AdvSOV order, e.g.,*Yasai-de Ziro-ga Kazuko-ni soodansi-ta ‘Ziro consulted Kazuko with the vegetables’,had the position of their instrumental adverbial PP phrase changed into SAdvOV, e.g.,
Ziro-ga yasai-de Kazuko-ni soodansi-ta, and SOAdvV, e.g., Ziro-ga Kazuko-ni yasaide soodansi-ta. Again, the only differences among the three were the positions of theadverbial phrases.
Reading times are likely to become shorter when participants read sentences insequence containing the same words. In order to prevent this effect of repeated encountering, we counterbalanced the list of sentences with a Latin square design. Three listsof sentences were given to three groups of participants (8 each). Each list consisted of
24 sentences (8 each for AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV) for “Yes” responses and 24
sentences (8 each of AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV) for “No” responses. In addition,
20 dummy sentences (10 semantically coherent and 10 semantically anomalous) were
put in each list as filler sentences, such as Watasi-no tokuina ryoori-wa kareeraisu da‘My favorite thing to cook is curry and rice’. A total of 68 stimuli were used, consisting of 24 semantically coherent, 24 semantically anomalous, and 20 dummy sentences.
Experiments 1 and 2 were conducted together in a single experiment.

Procedure
The present study utilized a reaction time paradigm that measures the elapsed time
between the presentation of a sensory stimulus and the participant’s subsequent behavior. This interval is called reaction (or processing) time. The experiment employed awhole sentence correctness decision task, by showing one sentence at a time on a computer screen. The presentation was controlled by Microsoft’s Visual Basic 6.0 + Microsoft DirectX8 computer program. Stimuli with both semantically coherent and semantically anomalous responses were presented to participants in a random order, in thecenter of a computer screen 600 ms after the appearance of asterisks ‘********’
indicating an eye-fixation point. Participants were asked to decide whether the sentences were semantically acceptable, by pressing a “Yes” or “No” button. They werealso asked to answer as quickly as possible, while maintaining accuracy. Twenty-four
practice trials were given to the participants prior to actual testing. Participants were
expected to process simple sentences with a high accuracy. Sentences with a scrambled
order were expected to require longer processing times than the corresponding ones
with canonical order, due to syntactic manipulations.

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

Results
There was one extreme “Yes” response and one extreme “No” response in reaction times
among sentence correctness decision times (i.e., less than 500 ms or longer than 5000 ms).
These two extreme responses were excluded from the reaction time data. Furthermore,
only stimulus items with correct responses (i.e., the participants answered “Yes” when thesentence made sense and “No” when it did not) were used in the analyses of reaction times.
Before performing the analysis, reaction times outside of 2.5 standard deviations plus andminus the mean reaction time at both the high and low ranges were replaced by boundaries
indicated by 2.5 standard deviations from the individual means of participants in each condition. Only one reaction time among correctly-responded “Yes” items fell into this category. The means of “Yes” and “No” reaction times and error rates for sentence correctness
decisions are presented in Table 1.
A series of one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with repeated measures for threesentence types (AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV) of “Yes” responses was conducted onreaction times (milliseconds) and error rates (percent), using participant (F1) and item
(F2) variabilities. There were significant main effects in both participant analysis [F1(2,46) = 8.262, p < 0.001] and item analysis [F2(2, 46) = 6.008, p < 0.01] for reaction times, but
no main effect for error rates [F1(2, 46) = 2.120, p = 0.132, ns; F2(2, 46) = 1.523, p = 0.229,ns]. Simple contrast comparisons were conducted among the three AdvSOV, SAdvOV andSOAdvV conditions, indicating that SAdvOV was the most quickly recognized word order.
As for “No” responses (incorrect sentences), neither reaction times [F1(2, 46) = 0.007,
p = 0.993, ns; F2(2, 46) = 0.072, p = 0.930, n.] nor error rates [F1(2, 46) = 0.365, p = 0.696,
ns; F2(2, 46) = 1.181, p = 0.322, ns] showed significant main effects.

Discussion
Sentences with canonical word order are predicted to be processed more quickly than sentences with scrambled word orders. Experiment 1 clearly indicated that the sentences inwhich the instrumental adverbial phrases were placed between the subject phrase and theobject phrase were processed the most quickly among the three types of word order. Unlike
the canonical position of manner and resultative adverbs being either SAdvOV or SOAdvV(Koizumi & Tamaoka, 2006), the canonical position of instrumental adverbial phrases was
only SAdvOV. On the other hand, reaction times and error rates for correctly perceived“No” responses are observed to be null main effects, showing a minute difference inTable 1  Reaction times anderror rates for sentenceswith instrumental adverbs inexperiment 1

Response type

Position ofadverb (Adv)

Reaction time Error rates (%)
(ms)
M

SD

M (%)

SD (%)"Yes" responses

Adv SOV

1807

456

6.25

11.66

"No" responses

SAdv OVSOAdvVAdvSOV
SAdvOV
SOAdvV

1527
1663
1667
1674
1671

361
479
409
436
466

7.81
2.60
16.17
14.33
15.17

12.12
6.36
20.21
17.96
17.73

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

reaction times and a similar trend in error rates. This null effect may be a result of participants having multiple ways to reject these stimuli for “No” responses. For example, aparticipant may have been able to correctly reject the target sentence after comprehending
only the semantically implausible part of the sentence (e.g., an adverbial phrase of ‘consult
with vegetable’). Importantly, the “No” responses serve as a reference, and are not a major
concern to the main argument for the canonical position of adverbial phrases (hereafter thesame holds true for the other three experiments).

Experiment 2: Sentences with Locative Adverbial Phrases
Experiment 2 tested whether locative adverbial phrases have a canonical position (i.e.,
SAdvOV) in sentences with transitive verbs.

MethodParticipants
Experiment 2 was carried out at the same time as Experiment 1, so participants were thesame in both experiments.

Materials
As in Experiment 1, “Yes” responses consisted of sentences with adverbial phrases in thephrase orders of AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV. Twenty-four sentences with an AdvSOV
structure had their adverbial phrase positions altered into SAdvOV and SOAdvV. In thesame way, for the case of “No” responses, 24 sets of semantically anomalous sentenceswith AdvSOV had the position of their locative adverbial phrase changed into SAdvOV andSOAdvV. A counterbalance with a Latin square design was used to assign participants todifferent sentences. Since Experiment 2 was conducted with Experiment 1, the rest of thestimulus conditions were the same as Experiment 1.

Procedure
The procedure for Experiment 2 was the same as the procedure for Experiment 1.

Results
There was only one extreme “Yes” response and no extreme “No” responses in reaction
times among sentence correctness decision times (i.e., less than 500 ms or longer than
5000 ms). This item was removed from the reaction time data. In addition, only stimulus items of correct responses were used in the analyses of reaction times. The data trimming process was the same as Experiment 1. No reaction times among correctly-responded“Yes” and “No” items fell outside the range of the mean plus or minus 2.5 standard deviations. The means of “Yes” and “No” reaction times and error rates for sentence correctness
decisions are presented in Table 2.

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
Table 2  Reaction times and error
rates for sentences with locative
adverbs in experiment 2

Response type

Position ofadverb (Adv)

Reaction time Error rates (%)
(ms)
M

SD

M (%)

SD (%)"Yes" responses

Adv SOV

1740

440

5.88

8.35

"No" responses

SAdv OVSOAdvVAdvSOV
SAdvOV
SOAdvV

1626
1866
1719
1635
1667

365
530
410
423
434

4.83
7.46
15.17
15.25
16.67

9.08
10.51
17.73
22.91
20.06

A series of ANOVAs with repeated measures for three sentence types (AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV) of “Yes” responses was conducted on reaction times and error rates,
using participant (F1) and item (F2) variabilities. Significant main effects were found inboth participant analysis [F1(2, 46) = 9.255, p < 0.001] and item analysis [F2(2, 46) = 6.337,
p < 0.01] for reaction times, but no main effect for error rates [F1(2, 46) = 1.028, p = 0.366,
ns; F2(2, 46) = 0.603, p = 0.552, ns]. Simple contrast comparisons were conducted among
the three conditions, AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV, again indicating that SAdvOV was
the most quickly processed phrase order. As for “No” responses (incorrect sentences), neither reaction times [F1(2, 46) = 1.007, p = 0.373, ns; F2(2, 46) = 0.905, p = 0.416, ns] nor
error rates [F1(2, 46) = 0.315, p = 0.731, ns; F2(2, 46) = 0.063, p = 0.940, ns] showed significant main effects.

Discussion
As in Experiment 1, Experiment 2 indicated that sentences with SAdvOV phrase orderwere the most quickly processed among sentences of three different phrase orders. Thus,
as with instrumental adverbial phrases, SAdvOV must be the canonical position of locative adverbial phrases. Once again, this result differed from the canonical position of manner and resultative adverbial phrases identified as either SAdvOV or SOAdvV (Koizumi &Tamaoka, 2006).

Experiment 3: Noun Phrases with Instrumental Adverbial Phrases
Experiment 3 examined whether instrumental adverbial phrases have the canonical position of AdvON in noun phrases.

MethodParticipants
Twenty-four graduate and undergraduate students (8 females and 16 males) at a university
in Japan, all native speakers of Japanese, participated in Experiment 3. These participants
did not participate in Experiments 1 and 2. Ages ranged from 19 years and 2 months to13

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

26 years and 9 months. The average age was 21 years and 3 months with a standard deviation of 1 years and 7 months on the day of testing.

Materials“Yes” responses consisted of noun phrases with instrumental adverbial phrases with theorders AdvON and OAdvN. Twenty-four AdvON noun phrases, e.g., yuubin-de-no zyukenno moosikomi ‘application for entrance examination by mail’, were prepared and had theiradverbial phrase positions altered into OAdvN, e.g., zyuken-no yuubin-de-no moosikomi.
The only difference between the two types of noun phrases was the position of the instrumental adverbial phrase with -de. For the case of “No” responses, a set of the same numberof semantically anomalous noun phrases with AdvON, e.g., densirenzi-de-no obentoo-no
kiritori ‘cutting a lunch box by microwave’, were prepared and the adverbial phrase position shifted into OAdvN as in obentoo-no densirenzi-de-no kiritori. Again, the only difference between noun phrases was the adverbial phrase position. These noun phrases aresemantically unacceptable, so the participants were expected to reject them as incorrectphrases by pressing the "No" key.
In order to prevent the problem of repeatedly encountering noun phrases with the samewords, a counterbalanced (or Latin square) design was used to assign participants to different noun phrases. Two lists of noun phrases were given to two groups of participants (12each). Each list consisted of 24 coherent noun phrases (12 each for AdvON and OAdvN)
for the “Yes” responses and 24 anomalous noun phrases (12 each for AdvON and OAdvN)
for the “No” responses. In addition, 20 dummy noun phrases (10 correct and 10 incorrect)
were added in each list as filler noun phrases, e.g., hanagara-no kawaii sukaato ‘a cuteskirt with pictures of flowers’. The total of 68 noun phrases were used for Experiment 3,
consisting of 24 semantically coherent, 24 semantically anomalous, and 20 dummy nounphrases. Experiments 3 and 4 were conducted together in a single experimental trial.

Procedure
The experiment employed a whole-phrase correctness decision task, by showing one nounphrase at a time on a computer screen. The presentation was controlled by Microsoft’s
Visual Basic 6.0 + Microsoft DirectX8 computer program. Stimuli with both semanticallycoherent and semantically anomalous responses were presented to participants in a random order, in the center of a computer screen 600 ms after the appearance of asterisks‘********’ indicating an eye-fixation point. Participants were asked to decide whether
the noun phrases made sense, by pressing a “Yes” or “No” button. They were additionallyasked to answer as quickly as possible, while maintaining accuracy. Twenty-four practice
trials were given to the participants prior to actual testing.

Results
There were two extreme “Yes” responses but no extreme “No” responses in reaction
times among noun phrase correctness decision times (i.e., less than 500 ms or longer than
5000 ms). These extreme responses were removed from the reaction time data. In addition,
only stimulus items with correct responses were used in the analyses of reaction times. The
data trimming process was the same as Experiments 1 and 2. Four reaction times for “Yes”
items and 11 reaction times for “No” items fell outside the range of the mean plus or minus

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
Table 3  Reaction times anderror rates for noun phrases
with instrumental adverbs inexperiment 3

Response type

Position ofadverb (Adv)

Reaction time Error rates (%)
(ms)
M

SD

M (%)

SD (%)"Yes" responses

Adv ON

1909

572

8.33

9.83

"No" responses

OAdv N
AdvON
OAdvN

2263
1937
2000

720
490
632

16.67
2.08
2.08

13.90
5.63
5.63

2.5 standard deviations. The means of “Yes” and “No” reaction times and error rates fornoun phrase correctness decisions are presented in Table 3.
A series of ANOVAs with repeated measures for two noun phrase types (AdvON andOAdvN) of “Yes” responses was conducted on reaction times and error rates, using participant (F1) and item (F2) variabilities: Two adverbial phrase positions, the adverbial phrase
initial position and the adverbial phrase second position, were examined in the processing of noun phrases with instrumental adverbial phrases. The analyses indicated that nounphrases of the adverbial phrase initial position (i.e., AdvON) were processed more quickly[F1(1, 23) = 18.846, p < 0.001; F2(1, 23) = 11.158, p < 0.01] and more accurately [F1(1,23) = 5.750, p < 0.05; F2(1, 23) = 9.095, p < 0.01] than noun phrases with the adverbial
phrase second position (i.e., OAdvN). For “No” responses (incorrect noun phrases), neither
reaction times [F1(1, 23) = 0.354, p = 0.558, ns; F2(1, 23) = 0.186, p = 0.671, ns] nor error
rates [F1(1, 23) = 0.000, p = 1.000, ns; F2(1, 23) = 0.000, p = 0.984, ns] showed significant
main effects.

Discussion
Experiment 3 indicated that the canonical position of instrumental adverbial phrases innoun phrases is AdvON (adverb initial position). This result replicates the general findings of Experiment 1 for the sentence structure. Thus, this provides evidence that nominal phrases are likely to adhere to similar restrictions of canonical order as the sentence
structure.

Experiment 4: Noun Phrases with Locative Adverbial Phrases
Experiment 4 further investigated whether the canonical position of locative adverbial
phrases is also AdvON in noun phrases.

MethodParticipants
Experiment 3 was carried out with Experiment 4, so participants were the same in bothexperiments.

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Journal of Psycholinguistic ResearchMaterials
As in Experiment 3, “Yes” responses were noun phrases with locative adverbial phrases
in the phrase structure of AdvON and OAdvN. Twenty-four semantically coherent nounphrases with AdvON were altered so that their adverbial phrase position was OAdvN. The
only difference between two types of noun phrases was the position of the locative adverbial phrase with –de. In the case of “No” responses, 24 sets of semantically anomalous
noun phrases AdvON were prepared with the adverbial phrase position shifted to OAdvN.
As in Experiment 3, a counterbalanced (or Latin square) design was used to assign participants to different noun phrases. Because Experiment 4 was conducted with Experiment 3,
the rest of the stimulus conditions were the same.

Procedure
The procedure for Experiment 4 was the same as the procedure for Experiments 1, 2 and 3.

Results
There were two extreme “Yes” responses and no extreme “No” responses in reaction
times among noun phrase correctness decision times (i.e., less than 500 ms or longer than
5000 ms). Once again, these extreme outliers were removed from the reaction time data.
Additionally, only stimulus items of correct responses were used in the analyses of reaction
times. The data trimming process was the same as Experiments 1, 2 and 3. Two reaction
times for “Yes” items and six reaction times for “No” items fell outside the cutoff boundaryof the mean plus or minus 2.5 standard deviations. The means of “Yes” and “No” reaction
times and error rates for noun phrase correctness decisions are presented in Table 4.
A series of ANOVAs with repeated measures for the two noun phrase types (AdvON andOAdvN) of “Yes” responses was conducted on reaction times and error rates. Two adverbial phrase positions, the adverbial phrase initial position and the adverbial phrase second
position, were examined in the processing of noun phrases with locative adverbial phrases.
The analyses indicated that noun phrases with adverbial phrases in initial position (i.e.,
AdvON) were processed more quickly [F1(1, 23) = 17.751, p < 0.001; F2(1, 23) = 10.456,
p < 0.01] and more accurately [F1(1, 23) = 4.312, p < 0.05; F2(1, 23) = 4.545, p < 0.05]
than noun phrases with adverbial phrase in second position (i.e., OAdvN). As for “No”
responses (incorrect noun phrases), reaction times for noun phrases with adverbial phrases
in initial position (i.e., AdvON) were shorter than for noun phrases with adverbial phrases
in second position (i.e., OAdvN) for the participant analysis [F1(1, 23) = 4.749, p < 0.05],

Table 4  Reaction times anderror rates for noun phrases withlocative adverbs in experiment 4

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Response type

Position ofadverb (Adv)

Reaction time Error rates (%)
(ms)
M

SD

M (%)

SD (%)"Yes" responses

Adv ON

1728

436

6.94

10.90

"No" responses

OAdvN
AdvON
OAdvN

2031
1764
1906

633
460
470

15.28
4.17
3.47

16.24
8.86
6.91

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

but this result did not hold for the item analysis [F2(1, 23) = 0.977, p = 0.333, ns]. Thus, weinterpret this main effect result as not significant. There was no significant main effect onerror rates [F1(1, 23) = 0.074 p = 0.788, ns; F2(1, 23) = 0.097, p = 0.758, ns].

Discussion
Experiment 4 indicated that, as with instrumental adverbial phrases in Experiment 3, theadverbial initial position of AdvON was the canonical position of locative adverbial phrases
in noun phrases.

General Discussion
The present study conducted four experiments to investigate whether the base structureof a sentence is shared by its related noun phrase. As depicted in Figs. 1 and 2, the present study hypothesized that instrumental and locative adverbial phrases with –de have thesame canonical position, SAdvOV for sentences, and AdvON for noun phrases. Extending
on prior studies of the scrambling effect in Japanese (e.g., Koizumi & Tamaoka, 2004,
2006, 2010; Mazuka et al., 2002; Tamaoka et al., 2005; Tamaoka et al., 2014; Tamaoka &Mansbridge, 2019), which showed that canonical word orders are processed more quickly
than scrambled orders, the present study investigated the canonical position of instrumental
and locative adverbial phrases.
Experiments 1 and 2 were conducted to find the canonical position of instrumental
and locative adverbial phrase marked by –de within sentences. Among the three possible
phrasal orders of AdvSOV, SAdvOV and SOAdvV, the order of SAdvOV was found to be
the most quickly processed, both in the case of instrumental in Experiment 1 and locativein Experiment 2. Thus, the canonical position for these adverbial phrases can be identified as the position between the subject and the object. Experiments 3 and 4 examined thecanonical position of instrumental and locative adverbial phrases in nominal phrases. The
result showed for both the instrumental adverbial phase in Experiment 3 and the locative
adverbial phrase in Experiment 4, the adverbial phrase initial position (i.e., AdvON order)
was processed more quickly and more accurately than the adverbial phrase second position(i.e., OAdvN order). These results suggest that the canonical adverbial phrase position forsentences, SAdvOV or PP position in Fig. 1, remains the same in the case of noun phrases,
AdvON or PP position in Fig. 2.
Takezawa (2000; as cited by Ogawa & Niinuma, 2012) claims that locatives and resultatives in Japanese are likely to differ in their ordering in relation to a theme determinerphrase (Theme DP) or an object phrase (O), where the former is likely to precede theTheme (SAdvOV), and the latter to follow it (SOAdvV) at the VP level (VP adverbs). Furthermore, although adverbial phrases are adjuncts and thought to be optional pieces of asentence, the present study showed that adverbial phrases have canonical base positions inboth a sentence and a noun phrase.
According to Koizumi’s (1993; see also Kishimoto, 2006; Miyagawa, 2012; Sugioka,
1992) categorization, the instrumental and locative adverbial phrases tested in this study
should be classified as VP adverbs. Under this assumption, their canonical position isdefined either SAdvOV or SOAdvV. In fact, the psycholinguistic study by Koizumi andTamaoka (2006) indicated that the canonical position of manner and resultative adverbs is
as either SAdvOV or SOAdvV. However, instrumental and locative adverbial phrases with

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research–de, those tested in Experiments 1 and 2 for sentences, and Experiments 3 and 4 for nounphrases, turned out to have only one canonical position: SAdvOV for a sentence (PP position in Fig. 1), and AdvON for noun phrases (PP position in Fig. 2). Additional support forthis order is found in the self-paced reading study by Nambu and Nakatani (2014). Using
nominative-genitive alternation, they also provide evidence that locative adverbial phrases(i.e., PPs) are likely to be located under the specifier of VP giving the order SAdvOV.
The ultimate purpose of the present experiments was to examine whether the basic word
order of a sentence would be shared by its corresponding noun phrases. The four experiments in the present study found that the canonical position for instrumental and locative
adverbial phrases remains parallel across both sentences and noun phrases. The adverbial
phrase position of SAdvOV in sentence is considered equivalent to AdvON for a nounphrase. This study’s findings support the assumption that the base structure of a sentence isshared by its related noun phrase.

Appendix 1: Sentences used in Experiments 1 and 2
Semantically Coherent Sentences with Instrumental Adverbial Phrases
in Experiment 1
1. 次郎がバットで和子を殴った.
Ziroo-ga batto-de Kazuko-o nagut-ta.
N(Ziroo)-NOM Adv(bat-de) N(Kazuko)-ACC V(hit)-PAST.
Ziro struck Kazuko with a bat.
2. 太郎がピストルで友子を殺した.
Taroo-ga pisutoru-de Tomoko-o korosi-ta.
N(Taroo)-NOM Adv(pistol-de) N(Tomoko)-ACC V(kill)-PAST.
Taro killed Tomoko with a gun.

Semantically Anomalous Sentences with Instrumental Adverbial Phrases
in Experiment 1
1. 健二が目薬でセーターを手術した.
Kenzi-ga megusuri-de seetaa-o syuzyutusi-ta.
N(Kenzi)-NOM Adv(eye-drop-de) N(sweater)-ACC V(operate)-PAST.
Kenzi operated a sweater with an eye-dropper.
2. 和子が糸で高速道路を手伝った.
Kazuko-ga ito-de koosokudooro-o tetudat-ta.
N(Kazuko)-NOM Adv(string-de) N(a highway)-ACC V(help)-PAST.
Kazuko helped a highway with a string.

Semantically Coherent Sentences with Locative Adverbial Phrases in Experiment 2
1. 健二がお化け屋敷で和子を驚かした.
Kenzi-ga obakeyasiki-de Kazuko-o odorokasi-ta.
N(Kenzi)-NOM Adv(a haunted house-de) N(Kazuko)-ACC V(surprise)-PAST.
Kenzi surprised Kazuko in a haunted house.

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

2. 友子が雑貨屋で花瓶を壊した.
Tomoko-ga zakkaya-de kabin-o kowasi-ta.
N(Tomoko)-NOM Adv(general store-de) N(flower vase)-ACC V(break)-PAST.
Tomoko broke a flower vase in the general store.

Semantically Anomalous Sentences with Locative Adverbial Phrases in Experiment
2
1. 友子が警察で太郎を読んだ.
Tomoko-ga keesatu-de Taroo-o yon-da.
N(Tomoko)-NOM Adv(the police station-de) N(Taro)-ACC V(read)-PAST.
Tomoko read Taro at the police station.
2. 次郎が野球場で手紙を叱った.
Ziroo-ga yakyuuzyoo-de tegami-o sikat-ta.
N(Ziroo)-NOM Adv(the baseball stadium-de) N(a letter)-ACC V(admonish)-PAST.
Ziro admonished a letter at the baseball stadium.

Appendix 2: Complex noun phrases used in Experiments 3 and 4.
Semantically Coherent Noun Phrases with Instrumental Adverbial Phrases
in Experiment 3
1. スキャナーでの画像の取り込み.
sukyanaa-de-no gazoo-no torikomi.
Adv(scanner-de)-GEN N(an image)-GEN N(import).
import of an image with a scanner.
2. 郵送での受験の申し込み.
yuusoo-de-no zyuken-no moosikomi.
Adv(postal mail-de)-GEN N(examination)-GEN N(apply).
application for examination by postal mail.

Semantically Anomalous Noun Phrases with Instrumental Adverbs in Experiment 3
1. 電子レンジでのお弁当の切り取り.
densirenzi-de-no obentoo-no kiritori.
Adv(microwave-de)-GEN N(lunch)-GEN N(cutout).
cutout of lunch with a microwave.
2. 時計での試験時間の横取り.
tokee-de-no sikenzikan-no yokodori.
Adv(clock-de)-GEN N(examination time)-GEN N(interception).
interception of examination time by clock.

Semantically Coherent Noun Phrases with Locative Adverbial Phrases in Experiment4
1. 空港での荷物の持ち運び.

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Journal of Psycholinguistic Researchkuukoo-de-no nimotu-no motihakobi.
Adv(airport-de)-GEN N(luggage)-GEN N(transfer).
transfer of luggage at the airport.
2. 球場での監督の胴上げ.
kyuuzyoo-de-no kantoku-no dooage.
Adv(baseball stadium-de)-GEN N(a coach)-GEN N(victory toss).
A coach’s victory toss at the baseball stadium.

Semantically Anomalous Noun Phrases with Locative Adverbial Phrases
in Experiment 4
1. 砂漠でのたばこの引き延ばし.
sabaku-de-no tabako-no hikinobasi.
Adv(desert-de)-GEN N(a cigarette)-GEN N(stretching).
stretching of a cigarette in the desert.
2. 海岸でのボールの激励.
kaigan-de-no booru-no gekiree.
Adv(the beach-de)-GEN N(a ball)-GEN N(encouragement).
encouraging a ball at the beach.
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