Applied Psycholinguistics 25 (2004), 1–27
Printed in the United States of America
DOI: 10.1017.S0142716404001018

Mora or syllable? Which unit doJapanese use in naming visuallypresented stimuli?
KATSUO TAMAOKA
Hiroshima University
YASUSHI TERAOUniversity of Shizuoka
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Katsuo Tamaoka, PhD, International Student Center, Hiroshima University, 1-1, 1-Chome,
Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8523, Japan. E-mail: ktamaoka@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
ABSTRACT
Because the Japanese phonetic script (i.e., kana) represents moraic units, it is often claimed that Japanesepeople assemble phonology at the moraic unit. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the unit
for naming visually presented stimuli, focusing on the special nasals /N/, geminates /Q/, long vowels /R/,and dual vowels /J/. The special sounds create two morae when there is only one syllable. Experiments
1 and 2 compared the production of three-mora, three-syllable and three-mora, two-syllable real, andnonsense words. The findings indicated that native Japanese speakers named the three-mora words
containing the special sounds more quickly. Accordingly, it is posited that special sounds are named
as syllable units rather than moraic units.

Because symbols of the Japanese kana phonetic script (see details of kana in
Inagaki, Hatano, & Otake, 2000) basically correspond to morae,1 because the wellknown Japanese poetic form called haiku is composed on the basis of 17 morae(i.e., three phrases of 5–7–5 morae), and even because Japanese children playshiritori (a word game requiring the segmentation of an ending mora), it is often
believed that mora play a major role in the phonological processing of the Japanese
language. Previous studies (e.g., Cutler & Otake, 1994; Kubozono, 1985, 1989,
1995; Otake, Hatano, Cutler, & Mehler, 1993; Otake, Hatano, & Yoneyama, 1996)
reported that native Japanese speakers use moraic units for auditory perception
and speech segmentation. However, a subsequent and considerably large body ofresearch, conducted in some cases by the same authors, resulted in conflicting
findings (e.g., Haraguchi, 1996; Kubozono, 1998, 1999a, 1999b; Otake, Davis, &Cutler, 1995; Otake & Imai, 2001; Otake & Yamamoto, 1997; Otake & Yoneyama,
1998, 2000; Tanaka, 1999). This newer research suggests that not only morae but
also syllables are used in phonological processing of the Japanese language.
Strictly applying the claim of the mora as a processing unit, a Japanese loanword/kareNdaR/2 borrowed from the English word calendar, is segmented© 2004 Cambridge University Press 0142-7164/04 $12.00

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Figure 1. The Japanese phonological structure of CVC and CVV.

into five morae /ka re N da R/ in the way the katakana script describes, but not threesyllables /ka reN daR/. Although it is quite possible that native Japanese speakers
use a mora unit for segmentation, it is questionable whether they make use ofmoraic units when vocalizing a visually presented word. It would seem inefficient
to pronounce the word using the moraic units of /ka/, /re/, /N/, /da/, and /R/; an easier
way to pronounce it is by using the syllabic units, /ka/, /reN/, and /daR/. In this case,moraic units are used for phonologically segmenting auditorily presented stimuli(i.e., auditory perception) whereas syllabic units are used for phonologicallyassembling visually presented stimuli (i.e., phonological production) for naming.
Moreover, the unit of phonological processing could differ depending upon thetasks of perception and production. Because the auditory perception tasks of
Cutler and Otake (1994) and Otake et al. (1993) suggested moraic units forJapanese phonological processing, the present study focused on phonologicalproduction using naming tasks involving visually presented stimuli including /N/,
/Q/, /R/, and /J/.
Cutler and colleagues (e.g., Cutler, Mehler, Norris, & Segui, 1986; Cutler &Norris, 1988; Cutler & Otake, 1994; Otake et al., 1993) conducted experiments
to identify how sound sequences are segmented for lexical access using a syllabic
monitoring task that required participants to find a consonant–vowel (CV) or
CVC sequence in acoustically presented words. Analyzing responses by native
French, English, and Japanese speakers, these studies concluded that native French
speakers use syllables to segment sound sequences (Cutler et al., 1986; Mehler,
Dommergues, Frauenfelder, & Segui, 1981), whereas native English speakers use
stress (Cutler & Norris, 1988; Cutler et al., 1986) and native Japanese speakers
use morae (Cutler & Otake, 1994; Otake et al., 1993). Based upon the results ofthese studies, Cutler (1994a, 1994b) proposed “language-specific phonologicalsegmentation.”
Recent studies in Japanese phonology (e.g., Haraguchi, 1996; Kubozono, 1989,
1995, 1999b; Kubozono & Ota, 1998; Terao, 2002), however, proposed that morae
and syllables need not be treated separately; rather, they may coexist in a single hierarchical structure. As shown in Figure 1, phonemes, morae, and CVC and CVV3(including CVJ as a variation of CVV) syllables are illustrated together (Kubozono
1999b; Kubozono & Ota, 1998). In this structure, the lowest phonological level isthe phonemic level, representing consonants and vowels. The next higher level isApplied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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3

the moraic level. The first mora (µ1 ) is constructed from a consonant and a vowel,
and the second mora (µ2 ) from a consonant (i.e., /N/ or /Q/) or a vowel (i.e., /R/
or /J/). The highest level in the figure is the syllable level. Units at this level areconstructed from CV and C/V, which create CVC and CVV syllables. For example,
a CVN syllable /kaN/ consists of three phonemes, /k/, /a/, and /N/; two morae, /ka/and /N/; and one syllable, /kaN/. Accordingly, the phoneme, mora, and syllable
units are counted as components of a single phonological structure. Assumingthat native Japanese speakers manipulate phonology based on this structure, assuggested by Ito and Tatsumi (1997) and Inagaki, Hatano, and Otake (2000),
phonological manipulation using both units of morae and syllables can be applied
to various tasks, depending on the required task performance.
The Japanese special sounds of CVN and CVQ sequences form a CVC structure
while CVR has a CVV structure and is referred to as a long vowel syllable. A CVV
structure also occurs when two morae, CV and V are combined. These are dual
vowel syllables depicted as CVJ. Japanese sounds are usually represented by a
CV structure (including the single V structure) that consists of one mora andone syllable. However, the four special sounds, which form a CVC or a CVV
phonological structure, show that a single syllable does not always represent asingle mora.
Japanese phonetic symbols of kana represent moraic units, so kana acquisition isoften assumed to have strong effects on phonological processing units. Concerning
this question, Inagaki et al. (2000) investigated the effects of kana acquisition onphonological segmentation in Japanese children. Although the phonetic scripts
of hiragana and katakana (generally together called kana) are officially taught
in the first grade of school, a majority of children actually master reading kanaprior to this. Inagaki et al. (2000) conducted a vocal–motor segmentation taskwith children aged 4–6 years, which required segmenting spoken words having
CVN, CVQ, or CVR syllables. The results compared children with and without
kana acquisition (i.e., kana literates vs. kana preliterates) and indicated a shiftof units, from a mixture of syllable- and mora-based segmentation for children
without kana acquisition to predominantly mora-based segmentation for children
with kana acquisition. However, kana acquisition did not create a dramatic, clearcut shift of choice between a mora and a syllable for segmentation. Ito and Tatsumi(1997) and Ito and Kagawa (2001) indicated that kana preliterate children werealso aware of moraic and syllabic units for segmentation, although it was true thatkana acquisition increased awareness of moraic units.
Speech errors indicate the use of moraic units by native Japanese speakers.
Terao (1996) reported 114 cases of phonological speech errors, indicating that it
is often impossible to tell whether a phoneme or mora error occurred. For example, /hakatawaN/, which is a proper noun (Hakata Bay) was mispronounced as/hatakawaN/. Because this word has the same vowel /a/ throughout the string of
the word, the error could be interpreted in two ways: as an exchange of the second
and third morae (/ta/ and /ka/) or as an exchange of the third and fifth consonants(/t/ and /k/). Terao (1996) counted these as both mora and phoneme errors andprovided a figure of 93 moraic errors and 88 phonemic errors (80 consonants,
8 vowels). According to this figure, moraic errors were only slightly greater infrequency than phonemic errors. It is also interesting to note that native Japanese
speakers make errors replacing /N/ or /R/ with /i/. Kubozono (1985) reported anApplied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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4

error in which /beityuR kaNkei/ meaning “Relationship between China and theUnited States” was produced as /beityuR kaikei/.
Several studies have been conducted to clarify the role of morae and syllables inJapanese. Otake (1992) conducted phonological segmentation studies investigating/R/ in morae and syllables. In his study, he asked participants to segment auditorily
presented words having an initial syllable that included /R/. Participants werethen asked to segment each word by drawing a line through its roma-ji (Japaneseromanization) spelling. For example, after auditorial presentation of a word kuuki(sounded /kuRki/) meaning air, participants would segment the word as ku|uki or
kuu|ki. This study found that syllables with /R/ were segmented into syllabic units
72% of the time and into moraic units 27% of the time (1% others). Based on thisfinding, Otake (1992) suggested that syllables with /R/ are segmented into syllabic
CVR rather than into the morae CV and R.
Otake (1993) further investigated syllables including /N/ and /Q/ using the same
method employed in his previous study (Otake, 1992). The syllables with /N/ weresegmented into CVN syllables 50.3% of the time and into the morae CV and N
23.1% of the time. Similarly, the CVQ was segmented as a syllabic unit 46.3%of the time and into CV and Q 32.2% of the time. Again, although the difference
was much smaller in the case of CVN and CVQ, syllables with /N/ and /Q/ weresegmented more frequently as syllables than as morae. Combining the findings of
Otake (1992) and this study, the syllable CVR was ranked the highest with respect
to frequency of syllable segmentation, followed by CVN and CVQ (i.e., /R/ >/N/ > /Q/). Otake’s results (1992, 1993) were thus congruent with the frequency
order provided by the corpus study of Matsuzaki (1994).
A different segmentation study was conducted by Machida (1988). In his study,
Machida asked participants to clap their hands while pronouncing a word or aphrase. The study used 28 stimulus items constructed of five morae. For example,
participants were asked to vocalize /maQtetene/ (please wait), consisting of the five
morae /ma/, /Q/, /te/, /te/, and /ne/, and at the same time, clap their hands in a rhythm
they thought matched the phrase. Machida (1988) counted how often the participants clapped their hands with the /Q/, /N/, and /R/ sounds. In each of the cases/Q/, /N/, and /R/ appeared in the middle of the phonological string, with the results
showing that participants clapped their hands on the single mora unit of /Q/ at thevery low rate of 7% (93% on the syllabic unit), whereas they clapped at rates of
26% for /N/ and 27% for /R/. According to Machida’s results, all of the special
sounds are grouped into syllables of CVQ, CVN, and CVR at a high frequency.
The relative frequencies of syllabic clapping was /Q/ > /N/ = /R/. This clapping
frequency strongly supports the syllable, not the mora, as a segmentation unit forthe special sounds. The order of syllabic segmentation, /Q/ > /N/ = /R/, basically indicated an opposite direction to that of the segmentation study of Otake(1992, 1993) and the corpus frequency study by Matsuzaki (1994) that suggested
a segmentation order of /R/ > /N/ > /Q/.
However, there may be a fundamental problem with Machida’s (1988) researchmethod. Japanese broadcasters speak at the rate of 9.5 morae (Sugito, 1999), andnative English speakers learning Japanese as a second language can read sentencesat the rate of 2–3 morae (Tamaoka, 2000). Based on this information, the average
speaking rate of native Japanese speakers can be estimated to lie somewhere in
between these extremes, such as 5 or 6 morae. Taking this rate into consideration, itApplied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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would be virtually impossible to clap in rhythm with morae, as this would requirea rate of five or six claps per second when speaking at a natural pace. In this sense,
it could be argued that Machida’s participants either chose or were permitted toclap their hands simply to a larger phonological unit, the syllable, rather than thesmaller mora in order to keep up with the speed of word production.
Matsuzaki (1996a) further investigated differences between morae and syllables.
Matsuzaki auditorily presented four-morae alphabetic loan words (i.e., Gairaigo)
and asked participants to choose one out of eight possible segmentation patterns.
The study revealed that /R/ was segmented as a single mora only 12.2% of thetime, /Q/ followed next, at a rate of 44.4%, and /N/ was 54.8%. The dual vowel ordiphthong /J/ was segmented 63.3% of the time. These figures can be interpreted
as showing the tendency of readers to treat these sounds as independent morae.
Thus, Matsuzaki (1996a) ranked the tendency of the sounds to serve as parts ofsyllables to be /R/ > /Q/ > /N/ > /J/. The opposite order is interpreted as the
ranking of sounds to serve as independent morae. Matsuzaki (1996b) repeated thesame experiment using 92 participants with only Tokyo dialect backgrounds andobtained the same results. Another interesting study related to the frequency of thespecial sounds was conducted by Kubozono (1999a), who collected 588 CVC andCVV syllables with special sounds from traditional Japanese songs and analyzed
the mapping between morae or syllables and musical notes. The strength ranking
of syllabic structures in Kubozono’s study was /Q/ > /N/ > /R/ > /J/.
According to the previous studies, there are four different patterns of theJapanese special sounds in terms of the degree of syllabic structure strength. First,
Otake (1992, 1993) suggested /R/ > /N/ > /Q/, based on phonological segmentationof auditorily presented words. This pattern is congruent with the frequencies ofappearance of the special sounds in Kango and Gairaigo words (Matsuzaki, 1994).
Second, the hand clapping task used by Machida (1988) indicated a quite different
pattern, /Q/ > /N/ = /R/. Third, Matsuzaki (1996a, 1996b) required participants
to select one of eight segmentations for auditorily presented words and found thepattern, /R/ > /Q/ > /N/ > /J/. Fourth, Kubozono (1999a) found another pattern,/Q/ > /N/ > /R/ > /J/, in his study of musical notes assigned to CVV and CVC
syllables, including the four special sounds in traditional Japanese songs. Thesefour patterns can be further divided into two groups based upon differences inthe tasks. The first and third patterns were identified in studies of phonologicalperception (segmenting auditorily presented words), whereas the second and fourth
patterns might be considered phonological production (clapping hands with the
production of a word and assigning words to musical notes). Therefore, somedistinctive differences could exist between perceiving phonological input and producing phonological output.
Previous studies in Japanese phonological units have focused primarily on
perception rather than production. Taking these into consideration, the present
study investigated phonological units for naming visually presented stimuli as
the means of measuring phonological production, as depicted in Figure 1. The
study used phonological strings of nonwords as well as real words for naming sothat it would be possible to directly compare naming latencies and error rates forstimuli having different phonological structures, especially with regard to morae
and syllables. In the first experiment, all nonword stimuli were presented in the
hiragana script to compare three-mora and three-syllable CVCVCV-structured

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nonwords with three-mora and two-syllable CVNCV-, CVQCV-, and CVJCVstructured nonwords. In the second experiment stimuli were presented in the
katakana script because the hiragana script cannot clearly describe a long vowel(i.e., CVRCV). Again, CVCVCV-structured nonwords were used as the basis forcomparing nonwords with three-mora and two-syllable CVNCV-, CVQCV-, andCVRCV-structured nonwords. The details of hypotheses related to phonologicalstructure are explained at the beginning of each experiment.
EXPERIMENT 1: NAMING OF NONWORDS VISUALLY PRESENTED
IN HIRAGANA

Naming of a nonsense string of hiragana symbols (Goryo, 1987) showed a clear,constant increase in naming latencies with numbers of morae: 467 ms for 1 mora,
527 ms for 2 morae, 607 ms for 3 morae, and 678 ms for 4 morae. This trend
was also observed in the naming of real words: 459 ms for 1 mora, 469 ms for 2
morae, 475 ms for 3 morae, and 504 ms for 4 morae. Therefore, it was assumed thatthe greater the number of morae constructing a nonword, the longer the naming
latency would be. If mature, native Japanese readers use the unit of mora forphonological processing of visually presented nonwords, one would expect anequal naming latency and an equal error rate across the three-mora conditionsof CVCVCV, CVVCV, CVNCV, and CVQCV. In contrast, if a syllable serves
as the phonological processing unit, one would expect that nonwords composedof two-syllable and three-morae conditions (e.g., CVJCV, CVNCV, and CVQCV)
would be pronounced more quickly (i.e., have a shorter naming latency) than threesyllable, three-mora items having the CVCVCV structure. Figure 2 illustrates thecontrast between moraic and syllabic structures for the stimuli of Experiment 1.
MethodTwenty-four undergraduate and graduate students (16 females,
8 males; age range = 21 to 31 years) participated in the first experiment. The
average age was 23 years and 2 months (23;2).

Participants.

As shown in Figure 2, six stimulus conditions of real words and nonwords
were used in the naming task (see the details of stimulus items in Appendix A).
Items in Conditions 1–5 were nonwords and those in Condition 6 were real words.
Items in the first condition had a CVCVCV structure, which consists of threesyllables and three morae, as in /ke ta pe/. Items in the second condition had a
CVJCV4 structure, which can be segmented into two syllables and three morae, as
in /keo pe/ or /ke o pe/. Items in the third condition had a CVNCV structure, whichis also divisible into two syllables, as in /keN pe/, and three morae, as in /ke N pe/.
This third condition included the nasal coda /N/, which is one of the three Japanese
special sounds. Items in the fourth condition had a CVQCV structure, which canbe divided into two syllables, as in /keQ pe/, and three morae, as in /ke Q pe/. Items
in the fifth condition had a CVCV structure, as in /ke pe/, and were segmented into
two syllables and two morae. To avoid repeating similar stimulus items, items in
the phonological conditions of CVJCV, CVQCV, and CVNCV were divided into
three sets and assigned to different participants.

Stimuli.

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All of the stimulus items were presented in hiragana. Items in each nonword
condition were identical except for the second mora. This stimulus alternation was
done to minimize the effect caused by the types of phonemes used for constructing
nonwords. In addition to the five conditions of nonwords, there was also a sixth
condition. In this case, real words with the same initial onset phonemes as forthe nonwords were included to test the well-established principle of the “lexical
status effect” (details explained in Taft, 1991), which suggests that real words arepronounced more quickly than nonwords. It is also well documented that the initialphonemes of stimuli cause a difference in naming latencies when determined bya voice key (e.g., Sakuma, Fushimi, & Tatsumi, 1997; Tamaoka & Hatsuzuka,
1997). In the present study, all the stimulus items were paired with all of theconditions (see Appendix A). Thus, differences in initial onsets could not affectnaming latencies.
Word-likeness for nonwords is expected to have facilitation effects in speed, and to some degree accuracy, of naming nonwords; the more thestimulus nonwords are wordlike, the shorter their naming latencies become. The
stimulus nature of word-likeness was measured by a 5-point (5 = very much like aJapanese word to 1 = very unlike a Japanese word) scale questionnaire given to 24
university students (20 female, 4 male; average age = 19;3, with SD = 1;8). A oneway analysis of variance (ANOVA) for nonwords revealed a significant main effectin scores of work-likeness across the five nonword conditions, F (4, 115) = 6.69,
p < .001. The Student–Newman–Keuls’ (SNK) multiple comparison method revealed that only the CVCV two-mora and two-syllable condition were judged byuniversity students to be more wordlike than four other three-mora conditions of
CVCVCV, CVJCV, CVQCV, and CVNCV. Because the three-mora conditions did
not differ in any comparisons, word-likeness was seen to have no effect on naming
latencies or error rates among all the three-mora conditions of nonwords. In any
case, scores of word-likeness were used as covariants for post hoc analysis using
an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with repeated measures.

Word-likeness.

An index for how often two moraic units are combined among
Japanese words is called bi-mora frequency. In order to investigate its possible
effect, the present study calculated the bi-mora frequency of stimulus nonwords.
The programming language of MacJPerl 5.15r4J for Macintosh was used to run thecalculation procedure. Because all Japanese words can be presented in kana, bimora frequencies were calculated on the basis of kana combinations using a lexical
corpus of the Asahi Newspaper from 1985 to 1998 (Amano & Kondo, 2000). Aftercalculating all the bi-mora frequencies of possible Japanese mora combinations,a bi-mora frequency for each nonword was found. In the present study, threemora real words and nonwords were used (except in the CVCV condition), so that
two sets of bi-mora frequencies were added to determine a bi-mora frequency foreach stimulus. As for the CVCV nonwords, bi-mora frequencies were doubled
to equal the other conditions. A one-way ANOVA indicated a significant main
effect in bi-mora frequencies across the five nonword conditions, F (4, 115) =24.89, p < .001. SNK multiple comparisons showed that only the CVNCV threemora, two-syllable condition was significantly different from other four conditionsof CVCVCV, CVJCV, CVQCV, and CVCV. Bi-mora frequency is treated as a

Bi-mora frequency.

Figure 2. The phonological structures of stimulus items used in Experiment 1.

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covariant for a post hoc analysis by ANCOVA with repeated measures as well asscores of word-likeness.
Participants were randomly presented with nonwords and real words
in hiragana on the center of a computer screen (Toshiba, J-3100 plasma display)
600 ms after the appearance of a fixation asterisk (∗ ). Participants were required topronounce the stimulus shown on the screen as quickly and as accurately as they
could. A voice-activated key turned off a timer in order to measure naming latency.
The accuracy of pronunciation was entered into the computer by the examiner. The
next fixation point was presented 600 ms after the examiner pressed the key forentering accuracy. Twenty-four practice trials were given to the participants prior
to the commencement of the actual testing.

Procedure.

Results

The mean naming latencies and error rates for the naming task of real words
and the five different types of nonwords are presented in Table 1. The statisticaltests that follow analyze both participant (F1 ) and item (F2 ) variabilities. Oneway ANOVAs with repeated measures were conducted for the naming latenciesof correct responses and accuracy ratios. Before performing the analysis, naming
latencies shorter or longer than ±2.5 SD from the means of individual participantsin each nonword and word condition were replaced by latencies that were ±2.5
SD from the means.
A one-way ANOVA with repeated measures fornaming latencies across all six conditions indicated that there was a significant main
effect for the type of real word or nonword in the participant analysis, F1 (5, 115) =19.27, p < .0001, and item analysis, F2 (5, 115) = 25.03, p < .0001.
Further analysis using an orthogonal polynomial contrast comparison was carried out to isolate the reason for the main effect. As shown in Table 1, real words
with a CVCVCV phonological structure were named 122 ms faster than nonwords
with the same CVCVCV phonological structure, F1 (1, 23) = 33.34, p < .0001;
F2 (1, 23) = 51.64, p < .0001, which supported the well-established “lexical status effect.” Nonwords with a CVJCV structure, which can be divided into threemorae or two syllables, were named 55 ms faster than those with a CVCVCV structure, F1 (1, 23) = 9.42, p < .01; F2 (1, 23) = 14.36, p < .001, but no difference
was observed in naming latencies between nonwords with CVJCV and CVQCV
structures. Nonwords with a CVNCV structure were named more quickly thanthose with a CVQCV structure, F1 (1, 23) = 31.67, p < .0001; F2 (1, 23) = 11.66,
p < .01, and with a CVJCV structure, F1 (1, 23) = 31.85, p < .0001; F2 (1, 23) =29.80, p < .0001. No significant difference was found between nonwords with
CVNCV and CVCV structures. Therefore, the order of naming speed from thefastest to the slowest was CVNCV, followed by CVQCV, with the slowest being
CVJCV, in which /Q/ and /J/ did not differ significantly (i.e., /N/ > /Q/ = /J/).

Analysis of naming latencies.

A one-way ANOVA with repeated measures for error rates
across the six conditions indicated a significant main effect in participant analysis,
F1 (5, 115) = 8.78, p < .0001, and item analysis, F2 (5, 115) = 7.99, p < .0001.

Analysis of error rates.

Table 1. Mean latencies and error rates for naming real words and nonwords as a function of phonological structure
Stimulus
Condition

Phonemic
Structure

Nonwords

1. CVCVCV
2. CVJCV
3. CVQCV
4. CVNCV
5. CVCV
6. CVCVCVReal words

ExampleNumber of

PhonemesSpecial
Sound

Morae

Syllables

Naming
Latency (ms)

Error
Rates (%)

/ketape//keope//keQpe//keNpe//kepe//kesiki/

—
/J/
/Q/
/N/
—
—

3
3
3
3
2
3

3
2
2
2
2
3

645 (153)
590 (95)575 (82)533 (73)537 (65)523 (65)

15.1
7.8
9.9
3.1
1.6
2.6

Note: The standard deviations of the reaction times are in parentheses.

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Further analysis using an orthogonal polynomial contrast comparison was
carried out to isolate the main effect on error rates over the six types of realand nonwords. Real words with a CVCVCV phonological structure were pronounced 12.5% more accurately than nonwords with the same CVCVCV structure, F1 (1, 23) = 20.36, p < .001; F2 (1, 23) = 19.09, p < .001. As shown in
the analysis of naming latencies, the analysis of error rates also supported thelexical status effect. Nonwords with a CVJCV structure, were named 7.3% moreaccurately than those with a CVCVCV structure, F1 (1, 23) = 4.29, p < .05;
F2 (1, 23) = 4.96, p < .05. However, the difference of 5.2% in error rates between
nonwords of CVCVCV and CVQCV was not significant. In addition, there wasonly a slight difference of 1.1% between nonwords with CVVCV and CVQCV
structures, which also was not significant.
Nonwords with a CVNCV structure were named more accurately than those with
CVCVCV, F1 (1, 23) = 015.38, p < .001; F2 (1, 23) = 20.31, p < .001; CVJCV,
F1 (1, 23) = 4.97, p < .05; F2 (1, 23) = 6.68, p < .05; and CVQCV structures,
F1 (1, 23) = 9.02, p < .01; F2 (1, 23) = 5.79, p < .05. Nonwords with a CVCV
structure, which were named as accurately as those with a CVNCV structure,
were named more accurately than nonwords with a CVCVCV, F1 (1, 23) = 17.12,
p < .001; F2 (1, 23) = 23.28, p < .0001; CVJCV, F1 (1, 23) = 13.80, p < .005;
F2 (1, 23) = 9.86, p < .01; and CVQCV structure, F1 (1, 23) = 10.51, p < .01;
F2 (1, 23) = 6.57, p < .05.
Characteristics ofword-likeness and bi-mora frequency were calculated for the nonwords in Experiment 1, with both factors showing significant main effects. Thus, a post hoc analysis
of ANCOVA with these two factors as covariants was conducted on nonwords’
naming latencies. The results revealed the main effects of phonological structure
to be significant, F (4, 113) = 13.61, p < .001. Consequently, the phonologicalstructure of nonwords remained an important factor in naming latencies with consideration of word-likeness and bi-mora frequency. Word-likeness also showed asignificant main effect, F (1, 113) = 5.94, p < .05, but bi-mora frequency had
no main effect. The results of multiple comparison indicated that only the CVCV
condition was judged to be more highly wordlike than other conditions. Experiment
1 only considered the four nonword structures of CVCVCV, CVJCV, CVQCV, and
CVNCV, so that word-likeness of CVCV did not have any effect on the results.
Likewise, the same analysis of ANCOVA was applied to error rates of nonwords.
Again, the main effect of nonword phonological structure on error rates remained
significant, F (4, 113) = 3.98, p < .01, whereas the main effect of neither wordlikeness nor bi-mora frequency was significant. Thus, since neither factors were
expected to have effects on error rates, the result of nonword error rates remained
as initially found.

Post hoc analysis of word-likeness and bi-mora frequency.

Discussion

Naming latencies indicated that nonwords with a CVCVCV structure took longer
to name than all other nonwords with CVJCV, CVQCV, and CVNCV structures.
Nonwords with CVCVCV structures were the only ones divided into three morae

Applied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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13

and three syllables; all other nonwords consisted of three morae but only two
syllables. Syllabic units had a more salient effect on naming than morae because
the latencies of these nonwords were shorter than those with CVCVCV syllabic
units. In addition, nonwords with a CVNCV structure were named faster and moreaccurately than those with CVJCV and CVQCV structures but with the samelatency as the CVCV structure. The CVN syllable may be a single phonologicalunit for the production of nonword naming.
EXPERIMENT 2: NAMING OF NONWORDS VISUALLY PRESENTED
IN KATAKANAThe Japanese /R/ is not clearly depicted in hiragana and was therefore not included
in Experiment 1. For instance, the Japanese word for “agreement” is written as
in hiragana. This word is transcribed in hiragana as /doui/, although it is actually pronounced /doRi/. In contrast, another kana script called katakana presents
the long vowel as “ ,” so that it is easily recognized. Thus, in order to be able toexamine all three Japanese special sounds (/Q/, /N/, and /R/), Experiment 2 usedkatakana to present the stimulus items. As shown in Figure 3, we hypothesized that
if the CVQCV, CVNCV, and CVRCV nonwords with three morae but only two
syllables were all named faster than CVCVCV nonwords with three morae andthree syllables, the three Japanese special sounds are processed with the preceding
CV as a syllabic unit. If the latencies were the same, we would conclude that they
are all processed as morae.
MethodTwenty-four undergraduate and graduate students (20 females,
4 males; age range = 19–38 years) participated in the experiment. The average age
was 24;5. None of the participants who participated in Experiment 1 participatedin Experiment 2.

Participants.

There were two stimulus conditions for real words and four conditions
for nonwords. As for nonwords, the CVCVCV structure served as the baseline
condition to compare to other nonword conditions having three morae and twosyllables. These included the Japanese special sounds of /Q/, /N/, and /R/ andhad the phonological structures, CVQCV, CVNCV, and CVRCV. Except for the
CVRCV condition, the others included the same items as in Experiment 1 (seethe details of stimulus items in Appendix B). To avoid repeating similar stimulus
items, the conditions CVQCV, CVNCV, and CVRCV were divided into three sets
and assigned to different participants. As in Experiment 1, only the second moraof each item was altered to match items in each nonword condition. All items
were presented in katakana. The real words used in Experiment 1 were repeated inExperiment 2, but they were written in both hiragana and katakana scripts in orderto test for a “script familiarity effect” that suggests that real words presented ina frequently seen script are processed faster than the same words presented in an
unfamiliar script (e.g., Besner & Hildebrandt, 1987; Besner & Smith, 1992; Hatta,
Katoh, & Kirsner, 1984; Hayashi, 1999; Kawakami, 1993; Tamaoka, Hatsuzuka,

Stimuli.

Figure 3. The phonological structures of stimulus items used in Experiment 2.

Applied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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16

Kess, & Bogdan, 1998; Tamaoka, Leong, & Hatta, 1992; Yokoyama, 1997). Again,
real words in hiragana and katakana were equally divided into two sets and assigned
to different groups of participants so that readers would not read the same stimulus
item twice. All stimulus items began with the same initial phonemes as nonwords
so that a difference in initial onsets of nonwords would not affect the measurementof naming latency.
Word-likeness scores in Experiment 2 were measured in the same
way as in Experiment 1. Scores of word-likeness for nonwords in Experiment 2
were generally much lower than those for Experiment 1. This might have beencaused by a difference in familiarity between the kana scripts of hiragana andkatakana: hiragana is very often seen in Japanese texts, whereas katakana is basically used only to describe alphabetic loanwords. A one-way ANOVA acrossthe four nonword conditions revealed a significant main effect on scores of wordlikeness across the 4 three-mora nonword conditions, F (3, 92) = 11.84, p < .001.
SNK multiple comparisons revealed that the CVCVCV (M = 2.46, SD = 0.70)
and CVNCV (M = 2.62, SD = 0.36) conditions were judged by university students as more wordlike than the CVRCV (M = 2.16, SD = 0.31) and CVQCV(M = 2.01, SD = 0.34) conditions. Because the baseline of the CVCVCV condition did not differ from that of the CVNCV condition, these two could be directlycompared. In addition, CVCVCV was much more wordlike than CVQCV and
CVRCV. Thus, CVCVCV was expected to gain greater facilitation for naming
latencies (i.e., shorter naming latencies) than the other two conditions of CVQCVand CVRCV. Thus, word-likeness was used as a covariant for a post hoc analysis
of ANCOVA with the repeated measures.

Word-likeness.

Nonwords of bi-mora frequencies were calculated in the same
way as in Experiment 1. A one-way ANOVA showed a significant main effectacross the four nonword conditions, F (3, 92) = 21.65, p < .001. SNK multiple
comparisons further showed that the syllable of CVNCV significantly differedfrom the three syllables of CVCVCV, CVQCV, and CVRCV. This result indicatedthat the CVNCV structure was more frequently used in Japanese words than theother three phonological structures. Therefore, bi-mora frequency is treated as acovariant for a post hoc analysis of ANCOVA with the repeated measures as well
as scores of word-likeness.

Bi-mora frequency.

Procedure.

The procedure was the same as in Experiment 1.

Results

The mean naming latencies and error rates for the naming task of real words
presented in hiragana and katakana and the four different phonological structuresof nonwords are presented in Table 2. The statistical tests that follow analyze bothparticipant (F1 ) and item (F2 ) variability. Before performing the analysis, naming
latencies shorter or longer than ±2.5 SD from the means of individual participantsin each nonwords and word condition were replaced by latencies that were ±2.5
SD from the means.

Table 2. Mean latencies and error rates for naming real words and nonwords with Japanese special sounds of /Q/, /N/, and /R/
Number of
Stimulus
Condition

Phonemic
Structure

PhonemesSpecial
Sound

Morae

Syllables

Naming
Latency (ms)

Error
Rates (%)

Nonwords

1. CVCVCV
2. CVQCV
3. CVNCV
4. CVRCV/kotamo//koQmo//koNmo//koRmo/

—
/Q/
/N/
/R/

3
3
3
3

3
2
2
2

645 (116)
593 (102)580 (101)573 (95)

2.78
1.39
0.69
1.91

Real words

5. CVCVCV
6. CVCVCV/kisoku//kisoku/

—
—

3
3

3
3

569 (92)602 (94)

1.04
1.74

ExampleNote: The standard deviations of the reaction times are in parentheses.

Applied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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18

A one-way ANOVA for naming latencies for realwords was performed to compare the difference between the same words presented
in hiragana and katakana. The real words in hiragana were named 36 ms fasterthan the same words in katakana. This difference was significant in the participant
analysis, F1 (1, 23) = 15.67, p < .001, and items analysis, F2 (1, 23) = 7.53, p <.05, which supported the existence of a script familiarity effect. Although thesereal words are usually printed in kanji, hiragana is sometimes used to write thesewords, notably in books for elementary school students. Thus, as suggested inprevious studies (Hayashi, 1999; Tamaoka et al., 1998), because these real words
have orthographic representations depicted in hiragana as well as kanji, participants
could pronounce them faster (i.e., shorter naming latency) than the same words
presented in katakana.
An additional one-way ANOVA was carried out comparing the three CVCVCV
phonological structures including real words in hiragana and katakana and nonwords in katakana. The main effect was significant, F1 (2, 46) = 31.73, p < .0001;
F2 (2, 46) = 19.87, p < .0001. Further analysis of the orthogonal polynomial
contrast comparison revealed that CVCVCV nonwords were pronounced significantly slower than real words in hiragana, F1 (1, 23) = 48.84, p < .0001;
F2 (1, 23) = 13.51, p < .005, and in katakana, F1 (1, 23) = 21.21, p < .0001;
F2 (1, 23) = 36.20, p < .0001. These results show effects of both lexical status
and script familiarity. The lexical status effect is shown by the difference in naming latencies between CVCVCV real words and nonwords presented in katakana,whereas the script familiarity effect is shown by the difference in naming latencies
between CVCVCV real words in katakana and hiragana.
The main purpose of Experiment 2 was to examine the phonological processing
unit for production. To reach this goal, differences in naming latencies for thefour nonword conditions were examined by a one-way ANOVA with repeatedmeasures. There was a main effect of the four different types of phonologicalstructures in the participant, F1 (3, 69) = 26.07, p < .0001, and item analyses,
F2 (3, 69) = 21.97, p < .0001.
Further analysis using an orthogonal polynomial contrast comparison was carried out on pairs of the four nonword conditions. As shown in Table 2, thelongest naming latency was observed in the CVCVCV condition. This latency
was significantly slower than all other nonword conditions: CVQCV, F1 (1, 23) =16.29, p < .0005; F2 (1, 23) = 14.14, p < .001; CVNCV, F1 (1, 23) = 74.90,
p < .0001; F2 (1, 23) = 28.20, p < .0001; and CVRCV, F1 (1, 23) = 51.02, p <.0001; F2 (1, 23) = 41.97, p < .0001. Among the three Japanese special sounds,
CVQCV nonwords had a significantly longer naming latency than CVRCV nonwords, F1 (1, 23) = 6.16, p < .05; F2 (1, 23) = 10.57, p < .005. Unlike the resultof the first experiment, there was no difference between the mean naming latencies
of CVQCV and CVNCV nonwords. In addition, the mean naming latencies did not
significantly differ between CVNCV and CVRCV. Therefore, the order of naming
speed from the fastest to the slowest was CVRCV, CVNCV, and CVQCV (i.e.,/R/ = /N/ < /Q/), respectively.

Analysis of naming latencies.

A one-way ANOVA on error rates performed on the datafor real words in hiragana and katakana revealed no difference. Real words also

Analysis of error rates.

Applied Psycholinguistics 25:1
Tamaoka & Terao: Mora or syllable?

19

showed no difference in error rates when compared with nonwords with the samephonological structure. Because naming of stimulus items used in the present
experiment was easy for mature native Japanese speakers, the measurement index
of error rates was not as sensitive as naming latencies for script familiarity andlexical status effects.
A one-way ANOVA tested for differences in error rates among the four conditions of nonwords. The four different types of nonword structures showed asignificant main effect in participant analysis, F1 (3, 69) = 4.31, p < .05, and item
analysis, F2 (1, 23) = 3.00, p < .05. An orthogonal polynomial contrast comparison was used to test for differences between the paired conditions. As shown in
Table 2, the highest error rate was observed in CVCVCV nonwords; the rate washigher than those in the CVQCV, F1 (1, 23) = 4.60, p < .05; F2 (1, 23) = 4.58,
p < .05; and CVNCV, F1 (1, 23) = 8.63, p < .01; F2 (1, 23) = 9.86, p < .005,
conditions. However, CVCVCVs did not differ from CVRCVs.
Among the conditions including /Q/, /N/, and /R/, CVRCVs showed the highest
error rate (1.91%), which was significantly higher than the lowest error rate (0.69%)
found in CVNCV nonwords in the participant analysis, F1 (1, 23) = 6.75, p < .05,
but not the item analysis, F2 (1, 23) = 3.13, p < .10. Therefore, the order of error
rates from the lowest to the highest was CVNCV, CVQCV, and CVRCV, althoughthese represented rather minor differences.
Word-likeness wasmeasured and bi-mora frequency was calculated for the nonwords of Experiment
2. Both factors examined by one-way ANOVAs showed significant main effects.
Thus, a post hoc ANCOVA was conducted for naming latencies with these two
factors as covariants. The results showed that the main effect of four phonologicalstructures was significant, F (3, 90) = 10.12, p < .001. Consequently, the phonological structure of nonwords remained a significantly important factor in naming
latencies. Word-likeness also showed a significant main effect, F (1, 90) = 6.03,
p < .05. Although the one-way ANOVA for bi-mora frequency of nonwords inExperiment 1 showed a significant main effect, bi-mora frequency as a covariant
in ANCOVA had no main effect. The effect of word-likeness, however, supported
the results in Experiment 2. A base condition of CVCVCV nonwords was more
wordlike than CVQCV and CVRCV, which had been expected to show a facilitation
effect in speed of naming, but CVCVCV actually proved the slowest among the four
nonword conditions. Because the scores of word-likeness between CVCVCV and
CVNCV did not differ, the results in naming latencies were as initially indicated.
Similarly, an ANCOVA was conducted on error rates of nonwords. No main effectsof phonological structure, word-likeness, and bi-mora frequency were significant.
Thus, it should be understood that nonword conditions in Experiment 2 did notaffect error rates, although the ANOVA in error rates indicated a significant main
effect.

Post hoc analysis of word-likeness and bi-mora frequency.

Discussion

The second experiment indicated that all the nonword conditions including/N/, /R/, and /Q/ were named faster than the baseline CVCVCV condition. As inApplied Psycholinguistics 25:1
Tamaoka & Terao: Mora or syllable?

20

Experiment 1, this result indicates that mature native Japanese speakers are likely
to name visually presented nonwords with the three Japanese special sounds as asyllabic unit. Because the hiragana script used in Experiment 1 cannot properly
depict the long vowel /R/, it was given special attention in Experiment 2. It isinteresting that, among the three special sounds, nonwords with /R/ were named
faster than nonwords with the other two sounds, /Q/ and /N/. Accordingly, it seems
that /R/ in katakana strongly binds with the previous vowel when pronounced.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Using the differences in the numbers of phonological units between mora and syllable, the present study compared naming latencies and error rates for nonwordsof different phonological structures presented in hiragana (Experiment 1) and in
katakana (Experiment 2). CVC and CVV structures in Japanese phonology canbe divided into hierarchical levels of phoneme, mora, and syllable, as depicted
in Figure 1. CVC and CVV nonwords, which are counted as two distinct morae
but as a single syllable, are constructed when /N/, /R/, /Q/, and /J/ follow a CV
mora. All three-mora, two-syllable nonwords displayed shorter naming latencies
than three-mora, three-syllable nonwords. There are two major characteristics of
nonwords (word-likeness and bi-mora frequency) that possibly affect the results,
which showed significant differences across the conditions of both Experiments 1
and 2. A post hoc ANCOVA treating these two factors as covariants was conducted
for each experiment, sustaining the results of prior ANOVAs (excepting error rates
in Experiment 2, in which significance disappeared). Taking this as evidence, thepresent study concluded that the special sounds /N/, /R/, /Q/, and /J/ are combinedwith a preceding CV mora when native Japanese speakers pronounce visually presented nonwords, regardless of being presented in the hiragana or katakana script.
More specifically, syllabic units are basically used for naming tasks requiring
phonological production.
Despite the clear trend held among the special sounds comparing the baseline
condition of CVCVCV-structured nonwords, there were significant differencesin naming latencies within the four special sounds. Experiment 1 indicated the orderof /N/ < /Q/ = /J/ whereas Experiment 2 showed the order of /R/ = /N/ < /Q/.
Combining the two experiments, the order of naming latencies becomes /R/ =/N/ < /Q/ = /J/. This result implies that the special sounds /R/ and /N/ could be
combined CVV/CVC syllables more frequently than /Q/ and /J/. Therefore, theresult among the special sounds suggests that the degree of involvement of syllable
units for production differs from the higher frequency of /R/ and /N/ to the lower
frequency of /Q/ and /J/.
Levelt and Wheeldon (1994) and Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (1999) proposeda theory of a “mental syllabary.” In that about 500 different syllables encompass
about 80% of English or Dutch utterances, and both of these languages havemore than 10,000 different syllables, a few hundred syllables construct a mental
syllabary. Because their core syllables are repeatedly used in speech, the syllables in
the mental syllabary receive facilitation effects in articulation. However, Japaneseutterances consist of approximately 150 different syllables. According to Levelt
and Wheeldon (1994) and Levelt et al. (1999), all these syllables must be stored inApplied Psycholinguistics 25:1
Tamaoka & Terao: Mora or syllable?

21

the mental syllabary. Among these core syllables, some frequently used syllables
might have stronger facilitation effects on phonological production. As previously
mentioned, heavy syllables of CVV/CVC occur only with the four special sounds
that cover about 8–9% of Japanese syllables.
Previous studies (e.g., Inagaki, Hatano, & Otake, 2000; Ito & Kagawa, 2001;
Ito & Tatsumi, 1997; Otake & Imai, 2001) suggested that the special sound /Q/
behaves differently from the others. In the present study, although the naming latencies for CVQCV nonwords were 55 ms shorter than for CVCVCV nonwords inExperiment 1, they were 42 ms longer than for CVNCV nonwords. This trend was
also observed in Experiment 2. Furthermore, CVNCV nonwords were significantly
longer in naming latencies than CVRCV nonwords. Both Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that CVQCV nonwords were processed as CVQ and CV units for naming,
although these were not pronounced as quickly as in the cases of CVN and CVR.
Therefore, taking the results of both Experiments 1 and 2, it is quite possible that
the CVQ could be assembled as both the syllable CVQ and the two morae CV plus
Q, depending upon the lexical and phonological conditions required in the tasks.
As explained in the introductory section, Kubozono (1999a, 1999b) found thata CVQ syllable is not usually assigned to a single musical note: thus, the /Q/ is nota single independent sound that is strongly bound into a syllable unit. Kubozono
summarized that /Q/ is treated as a syllabic unit much more frequently than /R/,
/N/, and /J/. However, the present study found the contradiction that /Q/ was much
longer in naming latency than /R/ and /N/. This difference may come from the corresponding nature of orthography and phonology involved with kana description for/Q/. Because /Q/ does not have a specific sound and is simply the waiting duration
for the following consonant (Kawakami, 1977; Komatsu, 1981), it must require
an extra latency for articulation. Additionally, Imai and Imai (1983) indicated that/Q/ was more difficult to acquire by children because of the nature of ambiguous
phoneme description by kana.
CVJCV nonwords resulted in equal naming latencies as CVQCV nonwords,
but they were named faster than CVCVCVs. As with /N/, /R/, and /Q/, this result
suggests that /J/ is also basically combined with a preceding CV mora to form a
CVJ syllable. However, like the case of /Q/, nonwords with /J/ were named muchslower than those with /R/ and /N/. Strictly speaking, the term dual vowel refers
only to two continuous vowels that are produced by an opened mouth moving
to a closed mouth such as /ai/, /au/, and /oi/. Continuous vowels from closed
to opened mouth (e.g., /ia/, /ua/, /io/) are not considered dual vowels but rather
two independent continuous vowels (Kubozono, 1999b; Kubozono & Ota, 1998).
According to this definition, a CVV sound /kua/ is not considered a dual vowel
but rather two continuous vowels, and is counted as two syllables (and two morae)
in the combination of /ku/ and /a/. Because CVJCV nonwords in the present study
used all combinations of two continuous vowels, these might have resulted in alonger average naming latency. Thus, similar to /Q/, /J/ could comprise the syllable
CVJ and the morae CV plus J for production. In sum, the present study provided
evidence that native Japanese speakers probably pronounce the special sounds assyllable units rather than the moraic units; in more detail, they are likely to select aheavy syllable of CVV/CVC for phonological production, rather than two morae
of CV and the special sounds of V/C, although /Q/ and /J/ seem to behave as a
mixture of morae/syllables.

APPENDIX A
Stimulus items used in Experiment 1
No. Real Word CVCVCV Nonword CVCVCV Nonword CVJCV Nonword CVQCV Nonword CVNCV Nonword CVCV
1
2
3

sa ku rata ma gona mi dasa hi motu ri senu ko desa u motu e senu a desa Q motu Q senu Q desa N motu N senu N de

sa mo
tu se
nu de

4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

hi ro ba
mi ya komo ku zi
ri ku tu
hi na take si kise ta keto ku giso si kihu ku si
mu zi tuya su mire ki sisu te ruta wa siko se kiso ku dohi mi tuma sa turo ku gano ha rahi hu romo ke home mu hiri nu mo
pi ho soke ta pese no rado ya nizo me tabu ha mimu ni keyu ti tore se yuzu ma sata yu bu
ki sa tusu wo maha ro nu
ma so paro ne kino re ga

hi u romo i home u hiri u mopi e soke o pese a rado i nizo i tabu a mimu e keyu e tore o yuzu i sata e bu
ki o tusu o maha u nu
ma u pa
ro i kino a gahi Q romo Q home Q hiri Q mopi Q soke Q pese Q rado Q nizo Q tabu Q mimu Q keyu Q tore Q yuzu Q sata Q buki Q tusu Q maha Q numa Q paro Q kino Q gahi N romo N home N hiri N mopi N soke N pese N rado N nizo N tabu N mimu N keyu N tore N yuzu N sata N buki N tusu N maha N nu
ma N paro N kino N ga

hi ro
mo ho
me hi
ri mo
pi so
ke pe
se ra
do ni
zo ta
bu mi
mu ke
yu to
re yu
zu sa
ta bu
ki tu
su ma
ha nu
ma pa
ro ki
no ga

APPENDIX B
Stimulus items used in Experiment 2
No. Real Word CVCVCV Real Word CVCVCV Nonword CVCVCV Nonword CVQCV Nonword CVNCV Nonword CVRCV
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

sa ku rata ma gona mi dahi ro ba
mi ya komo ku zi
ri ku tu
hi na take si kise ta keto ku giso si kihu ku si
mu zi tuya su mire ki sisu te ruta wa siko se kiso ku dohi mi tuma sa turo ku gano ha rasa ku rata ma gona mi dahi ro ba
mi ya komo ku zi
ri ku tu
hi na take si kise ta keto ku giso si kihu ku si
mu zi tuya su mire ki sisu te ruta wa siko se kiso ku dohi mi tuma sa turo ku gano ha rasa hi motu ri senu ko dehi hu romo ke home mu hiri nu mo
pi ho soke ta pese no rado ya nizo me tabu ha mimu ni keyu ti tore se yuzu ma sata yu bu
ki sa tusu wo maha ro nu
ma so paro ne kino re gasa Q motu Q senu Q dehi Q romo Q home Q hiri Q mopi Q soke Q pese Q rado Q nizo Q tabu Q mimu Q keyu Q tore Q yuzu Q sata Q buki Q tusu Q maha Q numa Q paro Q kino Q gasa N motu N senu N dehi N romo N home N hiri N mopi N soke N pese N rado N nizo N tabu N mimu N keyu N tore N yuzu N sata N buki N tusu N maha N nu
ma N paro N kino N gasa R motu R monu R dehi R romo R home R hiri R mopi R soke R pese R rado R nizo R tabu R memu R keyu R tore R yuzu R sata R buki R tusu R ma
ha R numa R paro R kino R gaApplied Psycholinguistics 25:1
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24

NOTES
1.

In kana representations, a single mora (a mora is a smaller unit of a syllable; see
Figure 1) corresponds to two kana such as in/kya/,/syo/,/myu/, and/gya/. Therefore, Japanese kana do not correspond to morae on a one-to-one basis.
There are 33 contrasting sounds in Japanese. However, they are regularly matched with
two-kana combinations. In this sense, the present study perceives that the Japanesekana script depicts a moraic unit on a regular basis.
2. The pronunciation in this article is transcribed using Japanese phonemic symbols,
which indicate three special sounds in Japanese: /N/ for nasal, /Q/ for geminate, and/R/ for long vowel. In addition to these three sounds, dual vowels (e.g., /ai/, /au/, /oi/)but not continuous vowel are described as /J/.
3. As explained in Note 1, there are 33 contrasting sounds in the Japanese sound systemthat have a CSV structure (S refers to a semivowel). When one considers a combinationof C and S as one unit, CSV could be understood as a variation of CV. In fact, CSV
sequences are depicted(/mya/),(/gyu/), and(kyo) by a combination of aregular sized kana and a smaller sized kana and are considered a single mora. In thepresent study, these sounds are not discussed and stimuli used in Experiments 1 and 2
do not include them.
4. The terms dual vowel and diphthong usually refer to two continuous vowels (e.g., /ai/,/au/, /oi/) that change from an open vowel (i.e., /a/, /o/) to a closed vowel (i.e., /i/,/u/). Two continuous vowels, such as /ia/, /uo/, and /io/, that change from a closed
vowel to an open vowel are considered two independent vowels. Experiment 1 used
all possible combinations of two continuous vowels in order to create nonwords. In
fact, the study by Kubozono (1999a, 1999b) described in the introductory section also
used all combinations of two continuous vowels to investigate the mapping of musical notes to the dual vowel /J/. A possible influence of this choice on naming latencies for CVJCV nonwords is mentioned in the General Discussion section of thisarticle.

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