Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 32, No. 4, July 2003 (© 2003)

The Effects of Phrase-Length Order andScrambling in the Processing of Visually
Presented Japanese Sentences
Katsuo Tamaoka,1,4 Hiromu Sakai,2 Jun-ichiro Kawahara,2and Yayoi Miyaoka3
The present study investigated the effects of phrase length and scrambling in the processing ofJapanese sentences. Reading times of short phrases, long phrases, verbs, and whole sentences, measured by the method of self-paced reading, did not differ in terms of phrase-length order and scrambling. In addition, four types of sentences constructed on the basis of phrase-length order andscrambling did not affect duration times of correctness decision-making for sentences. However, error
rates differed between canonical and scrambled sentences regardless of phrase-length order. This
result implies that scrambled sentences were harder to judge as correct sentences than canonical sentences. Thus, scrambling affects the appropriate integration of information, whereas phrase-length
order is simply an indication of preference and not of cognitive processing. To explain the present
result, the authors propose the “conﬁgurational structure without movement,” which predicts no difference in speed between the processing of canonical and scrambled sentences, apart from error rates.
KEY WORDS: Scrambling; phrase-length order; sentence processing; syntactic structure.

INTRODUCTION
Word order in Japanese sentences is generally flexible, apart from the rulethat verbs must come at the end of a sentence (see general information in
Nakayama, 1999; Nemoto, 1999). In the case that active sentences containing
ditransitive verbs (or an active sentence with a verb of three arguments) such
as Mary-ga John-ni sono hon-o watasita meaning “Mary gave John that
1

International Student Center, Hiroshima University, Japan.
Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University, Japan.
3
Hiroshima University of Economics, Japan.
4
To whom all correspondence should be addressed: International Student Center, Hiroshima
University, 1-1, 1-Chome, Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8523 Japan. Tel. and Fax: 082424-6288. email: ktamaoka@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
24310090-6905/03/0700-0431/0 © 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation

432

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

book,” Japanese speakers allow six different word orderings by swapping the
subject (NP-ga), the direct object (NP-ni) and the indirect object (NP-o) into
any order such as John-ni Mary-ga sono hon-o (NP-ni, NP-ga, NP-o) or sono
hon-o Mary-ga John-ni (NP-o, NP-ga, NP-ni). The existence of this free word
order phenomenon has triggered intense debate concerning the phrase structure of Japanese. The present study investigated which syntactic structure
actually represents the cognitive processing of the Japanese sentences by testing the effects of canonical and scrambled sentences with two different phrase
lengths.
Three Syntactic Structures for Explaining Word Order
There are three possible syntactic structures for explaining the free word
order phenomenon. The following sections introduce these structures.
Nonconﬁgurational Syntactic Structure
The ﬁrst structure is the “nonconﬁgurational” syntactic structure. A groupof linguists (e.g., Farmer, 1984; Hale, 1980, 1981) attribute the existence of freeword order to the nonconﬁgurational structure. Because word order in Japanese
does not alter the fundamental meaning, they claimed that the Japanese
language is referred to as a nonconﬁgurational or “ﬂat” structure. As shown in
Fig. 1, the two noun phrases and the verb are all connected at the same level.
In the nonconﬁgurational structure, there is no considerable difference amongsyntactic positions of phrases: noun phrases can be generated freely in any position in the sentence. A canonical order (SOV; subject, object, and verb) of
Mary-ga John-o nagutta, meaning “Mary hit John,” can be correctly expressedby altering the nominal noun phrase Mary-ga and the accusative noun phrase
John-o. A changed order of the sentence John-o Mary-ga nagutta (OSV) does
not affect the essential meaning of the canonically ordered sentence.
Consequently, according to this structure, a difference in word order should notaffect the sentence processing.
Conﬁgurational Syntactic Structure with Movement
The second structure is called a “conﬁgurational” syntactic structure.
Several linguists (e.g., Hoji, 1985; Miyagawa, 1989; Saito, 1985; Satito & Hoji,
1983; Whitman, 1987) argue that Japanese has a “conﬁgurational” structure.
These authors claim that an instance of phrasal movement results in the freeword order phenomenon. Ross (1967) originally referred to this as “scrambling,” which is the movement of noun phrases from their original positions totheir derived positions. For example, as shown in Fig. 2, Mary-ga John-onagutta reﬂects the canonical order (SOV) of an active sentence containing aEffects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

433

Fig. 1. Nonconﬁgurational structure NP-ga, Nominative case–marked noun phrase. NP-o,
Accusative case–marked noun phrase.

transitive verb. Once the accusative noun phrase John-o is moved to the frontal
position of the sentence, this sentence exhibits a scrambled order (OSV) of
John-o Mary-ga nagutta. Although the essential meaning of this sentence does
not change, the scrambled order will require a syntactic operation of phrasal
movement from a trace of the canonical position to the fronted position. Thus,
scrambled sentences in the conﬁgurational structure with movement must
require an extra cognitive load for syntactic operation.
Conﬁgurational Syntactic Structure Without Movement
The third structure is “conﬁgurational structure without movement,” which
distinguishes it from nonconﬁgurational structure and conﬁgurational structurewith movement. Ueyama (1999) argues that certain instances of Japanesescrambled phrases and sentences are base-generated in their surface positions.
Fukui (1989) makes a similar point that scrambling is a substitution into a basegenerated position. As depicted in Fig. 3, the conﬁgurational syntactic structure
without movement presupposes that both canonical (SOV) and scrambled(OSV) structures are initially available for cognitive syntactic operation. In
other words, both sentences of Mary-ga John-o nagutta and John-o Mary-ga
nagutta can be constructed based upon the initial stage of sentence processing.
Thus, although this structure is conﬁgurational, syntactic operation is not
required to understand or produce sentences. As a result, an extra cognitive load
for sentence processing will not be required for the processing of scrambled
sentences. However, when an accusative phrase is placed in the frontal position,
the distance for matching an accusative phrase with a verb may cause some
difﬁculty in accurately process the sentences. This cognitive process is further
explained in the later of the introduction with Fig. 4.

434

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

Fig. 2. Conﬁgurational structure with movement NP-ga, Nominative case–marked noun phrase.
NP-o, Accusative case–marked noun phrase. t, Trace.

Scrambling Effects on Sentence Processing and the “Gap”-Filling Parsing
Studies concerning the effects of scrambling show contrasting pictures.
Chujo (1983) conducted a semantic correctness decision task for both canonicaland scrambled orders of active sentences with transitive verbs. For example,

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

435

Fig. 3. The conﬁgurational structure without movement. NP-ga, Nominative case–marked nounphrase. NP-o, Accusative case–marked noun phrase.

“Tadao deceived Yukiko” is written in two ways; a canonical SOV sentencesuch as Tadao-ga Yukiko-o damasita and a scrambled OSV sentence such as
Yukiko-o Tadao-ga damasita. After showing these sentences randomly mixed
with incorrect ones on a computer display. Chujo asked participants to judge
whether a sentence semantically made sense by pressing a “Yes” or “No” button. Chujo found that scrambled sentences took longer to produce a decision

436

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

Fig. 4. The hypothesis of gap-ﬁlling parsing. NP-ga, Nominative case–marked noun phrase.
NP-o, Accusative case-marked noun phrase. [ ], Gap.

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling437

than canonical sentences. This tendency was much more clearly observed whena sentence had an inanimate object (e.g., Osamu-ga nimotu-o oita versus
Nimotu-o osamu-ga oita, meaning “Osamu put down his luggage”).
Chujo’s ﬁndings are compatible with the approach of the conﬁgurational
structure with movement shown in Fig. 2. If the nominative NP-ga is placed inits canonical position before the accusative NP-o, speakers can comprehend thesentence without any extra effort. However, the case is different if the accusative NP-o is placed before the nominative NP-ga. The semantic decision task
used by Chujo deals with the process of sentence comprehension (not sentence
production); thus participants in his study had to perform mental syntactic operations that, in some sense, reconstruct the scrambled NP to its original position.
As shown in Fig. 4, in a canonical sentence, the accusative NP appears justbefore a verb. However, when the accusative NP is placed in the frontal position (i.e., scrambled order), speakers must know whether the frontal accusative
NP is appropriate for the object with typically appear just before the verb. The
speakers therefore perform mental operations in search for a “gap” in the original position of the scrambled accusative NP.
The “active ﬁller strategy” hypothesis ﬁrst proposed for English (Frazier &Clifton, 1989) and Dutch (Frazier & Flores d’Arcais, 1989) also applied tosome studies of Japanese Wh-scrambling constructions (Aoshima, Phillips, &Weinberg, 2002; Sakamoto, 2002). According to this strategy, speakers mustsearch for the gap required by a displaced NP in the scrambled sentence. For
instance, in the scrambled sentence John-o Mary-ga nagutta in Fig. 4(ii), an
accusative NP John-ois placed at the front. This frontal NP initiates a search for
gap that is originally placed just before the transitive verb nagutta in canonicalorder. For the reason of the gap-ﬁlling parsing, speakers need extra time toprocess scrambled sentences.
Findings of No Scrambling Effects and Their Explanation
The ﬁndings of Chujo (1983), however, were not conﬁrmed by other psycholinguistic studies. Nakayama (1995) and Yamashita (1997) conducted on-line
sentence processing experiments using the self-paced reading method, which
did not ﬁnd any differences in reading times between canonical and scrambled
sentences. To explain, both Nakayama and Yamashita adopted the nonconﬁgurational (or ﬂat) structure. As depicted in Fig. 1, both the nominative NP-ga andthe accusative NP-o are located in parallel under the single ﬂat level. Because
there is no speciﬁc canonical order in this structure, any word order can begenerated to construct a sentence. As a result, word order, or more precisely
noun phrase order, has no effect on the receiving of information in written
sentences. Sakamoto (2001), further elaborating upon the results of Yamashita438

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka(1997), stated that because particle markers are attached to all noun phrases,
which provide clear identiﬁcation regarding functions of noun phrases in theparticular sentence, inputted information given by a different order of various
noun phrases (i.e., scrambled sentences) does not require an extra cognitive
processing load.
The findings of Nakayama (1995) and Yamashita (1997) could be causedby two reasons, sensitivity of stimulus conditions and the measuring methodof self-paced reading. First, both authors used complex sentences for stimuli.
In self-paced reading, preceding information is likely to affect processing of
the following sentence. When target sentences have a complex, embedded
syntactic structure, processing must require a heavy cognitive load of thesyntactic and semantic processing used not only for a scrambled phrase
but also for an embedded phrase. Second, the self-paced reading method isoften observed as a constant key-pressing reflex that may not reflect actual
reading times for phrase-by-phrase (or word-by-word) on-line sentence
processing. Thus, sentences with a simple syntactic structure were used forthe present experiment, whereas the self-paced reading was kept as used by
Nakayama and Yamashita for the purpose of examining its methodologicalappropriateness.
Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling
Although Japanese word order is so flexible that a short single sentencewith a ditransitive verb of three arguments (NP-ga, NP-o, NP-ni, and V) canbe written in six different noun phrase orders, it is surprising that the frequency of any type of scrambled sentences in informal speech is reported tobe less than 1% (originally calculated in Yamashita & Suzuki, 1995, as citedin Yamashita, 1997). Establishing the extremely low frequency of scrambled
sentences produced by native Japanese speakers, Yamashita and Chang(2001) further indicated that Japanese speakers almost exclusively constructeda canonical sentence when a long subject phrase and a short object phrase
were provided. However, when a long object phrase and a short subjectphrase were provided, Japanese speakers produced about 20% of scrambled
sentences in the order of a long object phrase before a short subject phrase.
Taking this as evidence, Yamashita and Chang (2001) suggested that Japanese
preferred to have long phrases before short phrases, and named it “longbefore-short” preference. This preference pattern of long before short, however, contradicts the preference of English speakers who produce shortphrases before long phrases (Bock, 1982, 1986; Bock & Warren, 1985). Botheffects of phrase-length order and scrambling seem to tie together; thus thepresent study investigated the effects of phrase-length and scrambling
together.

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

439

Predictions of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling Effects According toThree Syntactic Structures
The following predictions are proposed in relation to the three syntactic
structures. The nonconfigurational structure (Fig. 1) requires no specific priority in phrase (or word) order. Thus, not only scrambling but also phraselength order could be considered to have no effect on the processing of either
canonical or scrambled sentences. In contrast, the configurational structurewith movement (Fig. 2) predicts that canonical sentences are more quickly
and accurately processed than scrambled sentences due to the syntactic gapfilling operation (Fig. 4). If the Japanese preference of the long-before-shortphrase-length order has any effect on sentence processing, it would be further
expected that canonical sentences with the long-before-short phrase order are
more quickly and accurately processed than canonical sentences with theshort-before-long phrase order. When both factors of scrambling and phraselength order are combined, it is expected to create an even greater effect in
the configurational structure. In other words, scrambled sentences with theshort-before-long phrase order should require the longest processing time andresult in the highest error rate. In statistical terms, a significant interaction
should be obtained for the variables of scrambling and phrase-length. On theother hand, the configurational structure without movement (Fig. 3) only predicts a higher error rate for scrambled sentences than canonical sentences
because of matching an accusative NP with a verb for appropriate semantic
judgments. Both canonical and scrambled sentences are base-generated in thisstructure, thus reading times should not be affected by either scrambling orphrase length. With these predictions based upon the three syntactic structures, the present study investigated the effects of scrambling and phrase
length in the processing of Japanese sentences.

EXPERIMENT
Using a sentence-correctness decision task with self-paced reading, thepresent experiment investigated the effects of scrambling and phrase length on
the processing of visually presented Japanese sentences.
MethodParticipants
Twenty-four graduate and undergraduate students (19 females and 5 males)
at Hiroshima University in Japan, all native speakers of Japanese, participated inthis experiment. Ages ranged from 19 years and 0 months to 33 years and440

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

10 months, with the average age being 22 years and 10 months on the day of
testing. Participants were randomly assigned to each of four sentence lists(explained in the following section on materials).
Materials
As listed in the Appendix, 48 correct and 12 incorrect sentences (a total of
60 sentences) were created for the sentence correctness decision task. This task
employed self-paced phrase-by-phrase reading. As shown in Table I, four different types of correct sentences were used for the task. The ﬁrst and second
types of stimulus sentences were short-before-long sentences (i.e., Englishpreferred sentences) while the third and forth types were long-before-short
sentences (i.e., Japanese-preferred sentences). These two types of short-beforelong and long-before-short sentences were further divided into SOV canonicalor OSV scrambled sentences. Classifying in this way, the experiment examinedthe effects of phrase-length order and scrambling on Japanese sentence
processing.
The ﬁrst type of sentences were canonical (i.e., SOV) sentences combining a long subject phrase, a short object phrase, and a verb. For example, a sentence beginning with a short subject (or nominative) phrase wakai dansei-ga [ayoung man] followed by a long object (or accusative) phrase kon’iro-no zubon-ohaita tyuunen-no dansei-o [a middle-aged man wearing blue pants] was concluded with a verb korosita [killed]. Based upon this sentence a second scrambled (i.e., OSV) sentence, was formed by altering the nominative case makerfor the subject (i.e., ga in Japanese) and the accusative case maker for theobject (i.e., o in Japanese). This second sentence therefore consisted of a short
object phrase wakai dansei-o, a long subject phrase kon’iro-no zubon-wo haitatyuunen-no dansei-ga and the same verb korosita.
The third and fourth types of sentences were constructed using a phraselength condition of long before short. Like the ﬁrst type of sentences, thecanonical SOV sentences were in the standared order of subject and objectphrases, but they had a long subject. An example of this form is the sentence:kon’iro-no zubon-o haita tyuunen-no dansei-ga wakai dansei-o korosita[A middle-aged man wearing blue pants killed a young man]. As in the ﬁrst andsecond types, the fourth type of sentences were created by switching the subject
and the object, the above sentence becoming, kon’iro-no zubon-o haitatyuunen-no dansei-o wakai dansei-ga korosita [A young man killed a middleaged man wearing blue pants].
It was expected that reading times would become faster when participants
saw sentences containing the same words. Thus, to prevent this problem ofrepeatedly encountering the same words, a cross-counter design was used toassign participants to different sentences. Four lists of sentences were given toPhrase length

Short before
long(Englishpreferred)Long before
short(Japanese
preferred)

Scrambling
SOVCanonicalsentence
OSVScrambled
sentence
SOVCanonicalsentence
OSVScrambled
sentence

Sentence examples
wakai dansei-ga
Short subject NP-ga nominative
young manwakai dansei-o
Short object NP-o accusative
a young man
kon’iro-no zubon-o haita tyuunen-no
dansei-ga
Long subject NP-ga nominative
a middle-aged man wearing blue pants
kon’iro-no zubon-o haita tyuunen-no
dansei-oLong object NP-o accusative
a middle-aged man wearing blue pants

kon’iro-no zubon-o haita tyuunen-no dansei-oLong object NP-o accusative
a middle-aged man wearing blue pants
kon’iro-no zubon-o haita tyuunen-no dansei-ga
Long subject NP-ga nominative
a middle-aged man wearing blue pants
wakai dansei-o
Short object NP-o accusative
a young man
wakai dansei-ga

korosita.
Verbkilledkorosita.
Verbkilledkorosita.
VerbkilledEffects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

Table I. Examples of Sentences in a Function of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling in Experiment 1

korosita.
Short subject NP-ga nominative
a young man

Verbkilled441

442

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

four groups of participants. Each list consisted of three sentences in each category. In other words, there was a total of 12 sentences for correct “Yes”
responses in each list.
Twelve syntactically or semantically incorrect sentences were used for correct “No” responses to the task. Six sentences had inappropriate case markers,
and other six sentences semantically did not make sense. Unlike sentences withcorrect “Yes” responses, the cross-counter design was not used for sentenceswith correct “No” responses because data for the latter were not used for analysis in the present study. All participants received the same 12 incorrect sentences (listed in the Appendix).
Using the four types of sentences for correct “Yes” responses and the single type of correct “No” responses, the experiment investigated how the twovariables of phrase-length order and scrambling inﬂuenced the cognitive processing of differing sentence structures.
Measurements
This experiment employed a sentence-correctness decision task combinedwith self-paced sentence reading. In this task there were three different measurements, as shown in Fig. 5. First, the self-paced reading time was recorded
phrase by phrase (more precisely, a noun plus a particle such as dansei-ga,
koniro-no, and zubon-no). These measured times (in milliseconds) reﬂect theon-line sentence processing, which is the process of inputting lexical information to understand sentential context. Second, soon after having read a sentence, participants were required to make a decision whether or not it was
semantically and/or syntactically correct. The duration time for the sentence
correctness decision was also recorded. This duration time was expected toshow syntactic and semantic integration and veriﬁcation of inputted information. Third, sentence-correctness decision was measured as an error rate on thebasis of the number of incorrectly judged items divided by the total number ofstimulus items in each condition. The error rates reﬂect how correctly information was input through on-line sentence reading. These three measurements
were used in the present experiment to investigate effects of word-length orderand scrambling.
Procedure
Sentences were presented to participants using a self-paced moving window reading presentation. The presentation was controlled by a PC/AT compatible computer programmed by Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 ⫹ Microsoft
DirectX8. An arrow (→)was projected on the left side of the computer display for 600 milliseconds to indicate to participants the beginning of word
presentation. The first word appeared on the computer screen next to theEffects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

443

Fig. 5. Measurements of sentence processing in the present experiment.

arrow. Each word appeared in the position it would be in if the whole sentence were to be presented on the screen. When the participant pressed thespace key on the keyboard, the second word appeared. The end of a sentence
was indicated by a period (·), which refers to the completion of a sentence ina Japanese written text. Participants were instructed to read the sentences as
quickly and accurately as possible. Reading times of phrases were automatically recorded by the computer. Soon after the period appeared, the participants were requested to make a sentence-correctness decision by pressing theright arrow key for “Yes” or the left arrow key for “No”. The participants
were instructed to use both hands; the left hand to press the space key to read
the words constructing a sentence and the right hand to press the arrow keys.
No difficulties were observed by any participant in performing the task. The
duration time for the sentence-correctness decision was also automaticallyrecorded. Eight practice trials were given to the participants before commencement of the actual testing.
Analysis and Results
Extremes among reading times of words and sentence correctness decisiontimes (less than 100 milliseconds and longer than 3000 milliseconds) wererecorded as missing values. Three values out of all the participants fell into thiscategory. Only correct responses for correct sentences (syntactically and semantically correct sentences) were used for analyzing reading time and sentence
correctness duration in the present experiment. One participant missed all three
items of a speciﬁc category, and these data were excluded from analysis. Thus
the degree of freedom in participant analysis is one less.
Direct comparison of reading time in each lexical position across experimental conditions is impossible unless characteristics of phrases such as word
frequency, number of symbols (or letters), and number of morae are controlled.
In this sense, the positional analysis of Yamashita (1997) is inappropriate
because words in the same positional order differ (e.g., comparing tegami, “letter” to kanozyo, “she”). Difference of words in terms of the numbers of symbols and morae can be often adjusted by linear regression (see Mazuka, Itoh, &Kondo, 1997; Gunji & Sakamoto, 1999). However, it is a widely-accepted

444

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

notion that word frequency (i.e., the index of how often a word is printed) has
a strong effect on word processing (e.g., Tamaoka & Hatsuzuka, 1995;
Tamaoka & Takahashi, 1999; see Taft, 1991 for general discussion), adjustment
by linear regression should be included. Yet, ideally, words used in phrases
should be exactly matched across all the conditions. Thus the present study
compared identical short phrases and long phrases, so that the only differenceswere nominative and accusative particles (case markers) added at the end ofeach phrase. The means of reading times of short phrases, long phrases, verbs
and whole sentences, duration times of sentence correctness, and error rates forthe task are presented in Table II. The following statistical tests analyze bothparticipant (F1) and item (F2) variability.
Reading Times of Short Phrases
A 2 (short-before-long or long-before-short phrase order) ⫻ 2 (canonicalor scrambled) ANOVA with the repeated measures was performed on reading
times of a short phrase. The main effect of phrase-length order was not significant in participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.13, n.s.], but was signiﬁcant in item
analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 9.78, p ⬍ 01]. This signiﬁcant result in the item analysis
might be caused by phrase collocation. Some phrases combined with a verb
could be found next to each other more frequently than others, which might
have affected the reading time. However, because this effect was only signiﬁcant in the item analysis, only a few phrases resulted in extremely faster orslower reading times. The main effect of scrambling was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 2.83, n.s.], nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 4.01,
n.s.]. The interaction of scrambling and phrase-length order was not signiﬁcantin participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.03, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽0.21, n.s.]. To conclude, the reading times of short phrases were not effected byphrase-length and scrambling.
Reading Times of Long Phrases
In the same manner as with the analysis of reading times of short phrases,
reading times of long phrases were matched across the four types of sentences.
The same 2 ⫻ 2 ANOVA with the repeated measures was performed on reading
times of a long phrase. The main effect of phrase-length order was not signiﬁcantin participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.16, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 1.20,
n.s.]. Likewise the main effect of scrambling was not signiﬁcant in participant
analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.01, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.16, n.s.]. In addition, the interaction of scrambling and phrase-length order was not signiﬁcant inparticipant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.03, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.21,n.s.]. Therefore, phrase-length order and scrambling had no effect on reading
times for long phrases.

Short phrase

Long phrase

Verb

Total time

Correctness decision

Error rate

Phrase Length

Scrambling

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

Short before
longLong before
short

SOV
OSV
SOV
OSV

950
891
844
803

276
255
302
284

2183
2168
2125
2111

775
750
646
609

515
526
508
471

204
261
209
196

3648
3584
3478
3386

232
237
232
232

641
750
686
691

176
286
220
217

6.9%
13.9%
3.5%
11.8%

17.0%
25.9%
12.4%
21.2%

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

Table II. Error Rates (%), Sentence Reading (ms) and Sentence Correctness Decision Time (ms) in a Function of Phrase Lengthand Scrambling in Experiment 1

Note: M, Mean; SD, standard deviation.

445

446

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

Reading Times of Verbs
Japanese sentences being head-ﬁnal, all the verbs across the four types ofsentences come at the end; it was therefore possible to directly compare all theconditions. A 2 ⫻ 2 ANOVA with the repeated measures was performed on thereading times of verbs. The main effect of phrase-length order was not signiﬁcantin participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.46, n.s.] nor in item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 1.15,
n.s.]. The main effect of scrambling was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis[F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.09, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.02, n.s.]. The interaction ofscrambling and phrase-length order was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis[F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.28, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.44, n.s.]. Again, there were
no effects of phrase-length order and scrambling on the reading times of verbs.
Reading Times of Whole Sentences
In that there were neither signiﬁcant main effects nor signiﬁcant interactions in the reading times of short phrases, long phrases, and verbs, it was naturally expected that there would be no signiﬁcant effects in the reading timesof whole sentences. To conﬁrm this, the present study performed a 2 ⫻ 2
ANOVA with the repeated measures for the reading times of whole sentences.
As expected, the main effect of phrase-length order was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.62, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 3.52,
n.s.]. The main effect of scrambling was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis[F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.11, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.67, n.s.]. The interactionof scrambling and phrase-length order was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.00, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.02, n.s.]. Again, there
were no effects of phrase-length order and scrambling on the reading times ofwhole sentences.
Duration Times of Sentence Correctness Decisions
After reading a whole sentence, participants made a correctness decision
based upon their syntactic and semantic understanding. The duration times of acorrectness decision for a sentence were also analyzed using a 2 ⫻ 2 ANOVA
with the repeated measures. The main effect of phrase-length order was not
signiﬁcant in participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.19, n.s.] nor item analysis[F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.51, n.s.]. The main effect of scrambling was not signiﬁcant inparticipant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 1.48, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 2.71,
n.s.]. The interaction of scrambling and phrase-length order was not signiﬁcantin participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 1.25, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44)⫽ 2.33, n.s.]. Therefore, phrase-length order and scrambling did not effectduration times of sentence correctness decisions.

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

447

Error Rates of Sentence Correctness Decisions
Error rates of correctness decisions for correct “Yes” responses (48 appropriate sentences) were analyzed using a 2 ⫻ 2 ANOVA with the repeated measures. The main effect of phrase-length order was not signiﬁcant in participant
analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 2.48, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 1.86, n.s.]. The
main effect of scrambling was signiﬁcant in both participant analysis [F1(1,91)⫽ 5.58, p ⬍ .05] and item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 5.19, p ⬍ 05]. The interactionof scrambling and phrase-length order was not signiﬁcant in participant analysis [F1(1,91) ⫽ 0.16, n.s.] nor item analysis [F2(1,44) ⫽ 0.12, n.s.]. Therefore,
scrambling inﬂuenced the error rates of correctness decisions. As shown in
Table II, the overall average error rate of SOV canonical sentences was 5.2%
while the average error rate of OSV scrambled sentences was 12.9%. It was
concluded that the effects of scrambling created this 7.7% difference in theerror rates.

DISCUSSION
Reading times of short phrases, long phrases, and verbs and whole sentences, which were measured by the method of self-paced reading, did not
differ in terms of phrase-length order and scrambling. In addition, four different types of sentences constructed on the basis of phrase-length order andscrambling did not affect duration times of correctness decision-making forsentences. Despite all these findings of no effects, the present experiment
found that error rates differed between canonical and scrambled sentences
regardless of phrase-length order. This result implies that scrambled sentenceswere harder to judge as correct sentences than canonical sentences. Thus,
scrambling affects the appropriate integration of input information, whereas
phrase-length order is simply an indication of preference and not of cognitive
processing.
Considering the above conditions, the question arises as to how theseresults can be explained in terms of syntactic structure. In that effects ofscrambling and phrase-length order were not observed in reading time and sentence-correctness decision time, the present experiment did not support the useof the conﬁgurational structure with movement for syntactic as depicted in Fig.
2. Nevertheless, task errors occurred in scrambled sentences at a higher rate
than those in canonical sentences. Therefore, this result of higher errors did not
wholly sustain the nonconﬁgurational structure as depicted in Fig. 1. For the
explanation of these results, we propose the third type of syntactic structure,
conﬁgurational structure without movement, as shown in Fig. 3. In this model,
the structures of both canonical and scrambled sentences are base-generated,448

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

and therefore both structures are available for syntactic parsing from the initiating stage. However, as shown in Fig. 6, the nominative NP-ga is placed at ahigher level in the structure of canonical sentences, whereas the accusative
NP-o is also placed in the same higher level for scrambled sentences. Thus,
apart from higher error rates, syntactic operations such as the gap-ﬁlling parsing shown in Fig. 4 for scrambled sentences is not required.
Despite no difference in reading times, errors were more frequently produced in scrambled sentences than canonical sentences. When the nominative
NP-ga (subject) comes ﬁrst (i.e., a canonical sentence), the VP is constructed by
the accusative NP-o (object) and verb. In this condition of SOV, as depicted inFig. 5, the object NP-o is checked to match with the following verb. This
matching process is completed easily within a single VP level. On the other
hand, when the accusative NP-o comes ﬁrst (i.e., a scrambled sentence), thematching between the accusative NP-o and the verb is not so easily completed
because of the change in the level of structure. Matching is required between
the NP-o and the VP (consisted of the NP-ga and the verb). A greater numberof errors were produced in scrambled sentences than in canonical ones, because
the matching process between object and verb goes beyond a single structurallevel. Thus the present study proposed the conﬁgurational structure without
movement for the processing of scrambled sentences.

Three Fundamental Issues
Although the present study proposed the configurational structure without movement as the third type of syntactic structure, it would be premature
to draw concrete conclusions from the results of this single experiment.
Closely examining the three studies by Chujo (1983), Nakayama (1995),

Fig. 6. Matching of NP-o and verb in conﬁgurational structure without movement. Arrows referto semantic matching.

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

449

Yamashita (1997), and ourselves, we suggest further investigating the following three issues.
The ﬁrst issue rests upon the complexity of stimulus sentences. Chujo (1983)
used a simple sentences containing a verb of two arguments without adjectives
and adverbs. In contrast, Nakayama (1995) and Yamashita (1997) constructed
longer stimulus sentences accompanied by adjectives. Likewise, the present study
also utilized longer sentences to examine the effects of phrase-length order. These
longer and to some degree more complex sentences may have weakened theeffects of scrambling, which resulted in the null effects obtained by Nakayama(1995), Yamashita (1997), and our study. It could also explain how Chujo (1983)
observed the pure effects of scrambling by avoiding sentence complexity.
The second issue is whether the method of self-paced reading is a propermeans to determine processing speed. Although self-paced reading has beenused in previous studies of sentence processing (e.g., Hirose & Inoue, 1998;
Mazuka, Itoh, & Kondo, 1997; Nakayama, 1995; Sakamoto, 1996), we
observed that Japanese speakers were likely to read at a constant pace of speed
while pressing a key to see the next phrase. Once a key-pressing pace wasestablished, no difference in reading speed was observed regardless how sentences were structured. The null effects of scrambling found by Nakayama(1995), Yamashita (1997), and the present study can be partially attributed thisconstant key-pressing rhythm. On the other hand, Chujo (1983) displayed allwords in a sentence at once. Again, it could be explained that because of thisdisplay method, Chujo (1983) successfully observed the effects of scramblingin reaction time on sentence correctness.
The third issue is concerning with the nature of tasks. Yamashita (1997)
used a probe word after each sentence to check whether a Japanese speaker carefully read it. In this task, Japanese speakers had to concentrate on rememberingwords used in a sentences, rather than simply processing sentences. In this case,the self-paced reading set up by the speed of checking with each word again
nulls the effects of scrambling. In Chujo’s study (1983), a semantic decision task
was used asking participants whether or not a sentence made sense. In this task,
Chujo recorded half of the sentences as incorrect in terms of semantic context.
This straightforward method could be useful for examining scrambling effects.
The present study used a similar task, but sentences for “No” responses had two
types. Half of the sentences were semantically incorrect, and the other half weresyntactically incorrect. However, it should be pointed out that Chujo included
sentences with no case particles such as Osamu nimotu oita. In the experimentsof Chujo, this type of sentence was considered as a correct response; however,
the inclusion of sentences with no case particles could be judged as an incorrect
response. We have no way to see how Japanese speakers responded to these sentences with no case particles because Chujo did not report error rates. This fundamental problem detracts from the strength of Chujo’s argument.

450

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

These issues remain an unanswered; therefore the effects of scrambling in
the cognitive processing of Japanese sentences should continue to be thoroughly investigated in future studies.

APPENDIX
Sentences used for the semantic decision task in ExperimentEffects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

451

452

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

REFERENCES
Aoshima, S., Phillips, C., & Weinberg, A. (2002). Active ﬁller effects and reanalysis: A study ofJapanese Wh-scrambling constructions. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics,
12, 1–24.
Bock, K. (1982). Towards a cognitive psychology of syntax: Information processing contributions
to sentence formulation. Psychological Review, 89, 1–47.
Bock, K. (1986). Meaning, sound, and syntax: Lexical priming in sentence production. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 575–586.
Bock, K., & Warren, R. (1985). Conceptual accessibility and syntactic structure in sentence formation.
Cognition, 21, 47–67.
Chujo, K. (1983). Nihongo tanbun-no rikai katei—Bunrikai sutoratojii no sougo kankei [The interrelationships among strategies for sentence comprehension] [in Japanese]. Japanese Journal of
Psychology, 54, 250–256.
Farmar, A. (1984). Modularity in syntax: A study of Japanese and English. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.

Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling

453

Frazier, L., & Clifton Jr. C. (1989). Successive cyclicity in the grammar the parser. Language andCognitive Processes, 4, 93–126.
Frazier, L., & Flores d’ Arcais (1989). Filler-driven parsing: A study of gap ﬁlling in Dutch.
Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 331–344.
Fukui, N. (1989). Nichi/ei-go hikaku toogo-ron [Contrastive syntax of Japanese and English]. In
K. Inoue (Ed.), Nihon bunpoo shoo-jiten [The small dictionary of Japanese grammar](pp. 89–108) [in Japanese]. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.
Gunji, T., & Sakamoto, T. (1999). Gengogaku-no hoohoo [Methodology of Linguistics] [inJapanese]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shotten.
Hale, K. (1980). Remarks on Japanese phrase structure: Comments on the papers on Japanesesyntax. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 2, 185–203.
Hale, K. (1981). On the position of Warlpiri in a typology of the base. Bloomington, IN: IULC.
Harada, S.-I. (1977). Nihongo-ni ‘Henkei’ -wa Hitsuyooda [Transformation is necessary in theJapanese language] [in Japanese]. Gengo [Language], 6, 10–11, 88–95, 96–103.
Hirose, Y., & Inoue, A. (1998). Ambiguity of reanalysis in parsing complex sentences in Japanese.
In D. Hillert (Ed.), Syntax and semantics: Vol. 31. Sentence processing: A crosslinguistic
perspective (pp. 70–93). San Diego: Academic Press.
Hoji, H. (1985). Logical form constraints and conﬁgurational structure in Japanese. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Washington.
Mazuka, R., Itoh, K., & Kondo, T. (1997). Processing down the garden path in Japanese: Processingof sentences with lexical homonyms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 207–228.
Miyagawa, S. (1989). Structure and case marking in Japanese: Syntax and semantics (Vol. 22). San
Diego: Academic Press.
Miyagawa, S. (1997). Against optional scrambling. Linguistic Inquiry, 28, 1–25.
Nakayama, M. (1995). Scrambling and probe recognition. In R. Mazuka & N. Nagai (Eds.),
Japanese sentence processing. Hillsdale, HJ: Erlbaum.
Nakayama, M. (1999). Sentence processing. In M. Tsujimura (Ed.), The handbook of Japanese linguistics (pp. 398–424). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Nemoto, N.(1999). Scrambling. In M. Tsujimura (Ed.), The handbook of Japanese linguistics(pp. 121–153). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Ross, J. -R. (1967). Constraints on variables in syntax. Ph. D. dissertation, Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Saito, M. (1985). Some asymmetries in Japanese and their theoretical implications. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Saito, M., & Hoji, H. (1983). Weak cross-over and move ␣ in Japanese. Natural Language &Linguistic Theory, 1, no & f 245–259.
Sakamoto, T. (1996). Processing empty subjects in Japanese: Implications for the transparency
hypothesis. Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press.
Sakamoto, T. (2001). Bun-no rikai: Kakimaze bun [Understanding of sentences: Scrambling] [inJapanese]. Gengo[Language], 30, (10), 106–111.
Sakamoto, T. (2002). Processing ﬁller-gap constructions in Japanese. In M. Nakayama (Ed.),
Sentence processing in east Asian languages (pp. 189–221), Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Taft, M. (1991). Reading and the mental lexicon. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Tamaoka, K., & Hatsuzuka, M. (1995). Kanji niji jukugo no shori ni okeru kanji shiyoo hindo noeikyoo [The effects of Kanji printed-frequency on processing Japanese two-morpheme compound words] [in Japanese with a substantial English summary]. Dokusho Kagaku [TheScience of Reading], 39, 121–137.
Tamaoka, K., & Takahashi, N. (1999). Kanji niji jukugo no shoji kodo ni okeru goi shiyo hindo
oyobi shoji-teki fukuzatu-sei no eikyo [The effects of word frequency and orthographic complexity on the writing process of Japanese two-morpheme compound words] [in Japanese].
Japanese Journal of Psychology 70, 45–50.

454

Tamaoka, Sakai, Kawahara, and Miyaoka

Ueyama, A. (1999). Two types of scrambling constructions in Japanese. In A. Barss &T. Langendoen (Eds.), Anaphora: A reference guide. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.
Whitmann, J. (1987). Conﬁgurationality parameters. In T. Imai & M. Saito (Eds.), Issues inJapanese linguistics, Dordrecht: Foris.
Yamashita, H. (1997). The effects of word-order and case marking information on the processingof Japanese. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 163–188.
Yamashita, H., & Chang, F. (2001). “Long before short” preference in the production of a headﬁnal language. Cognition, 81, B45–B55.