Abstract
Utterance-final particles (UFPs) in Japanese can be immediately preceded by any lexical item, and can carry various tonal contours, each conveying nuanced meanings in discourse. This paper focuses on the empathetic UFP -ne, investigating its phonological representation (rather than its morphological, syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic representation) based on its usage as established in the literature. While traditionally viewed as a consonant-vowel sequence, our experimental data recorded by a total of 66 typically developed native Japanese speakers reveals the empathetic -ne has a consistently longer duration than the non-empathetic -yo. This paper proposes to represent the vowel of -ne as a structural configuration containing two tone-bearing units (e.g., VV or μμ), and focuses on the infrequent use of this structure among individuals with higher autistic tendencies, specifically in terms of difficulties with social skills.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the following MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI grants: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) Grant Number JP20H01269 and 24K00059, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) Grant Number JP22K00513, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) Grant Number JP19H05589, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) Grant Number JP19H00532.
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© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Advancements in Japanese psycholinguistics: developmental and acquisitional perspectives
- Editors’ Notes
- Guest Editors’ Notes
- Articles
- Prosodic influence on quantifier scope interpretation in Japanese-speaking children and adults: a picture-selection study
- Incorrect association of the focus particle dake: new evidence from child Japanese
- Exploring the emergence of language-unique event perception and description in children
- The empathetic utterance-final particle -ne in Japanese: a study on its phonological representation
- Similarity effect in morphological generalization: Using the volitional form elicited production task of Japanese verbs with suru ending
- The role of pitch accent in lexical recognition in Japanese: evidence from event-related potential and gamma-band activity
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Advancements in Japanese psycholinguistics: developmental and acquisitional perspectives
- Editors’ Notes
- Guest Editors’ Notes
- Articles
- Prosodic influence on quantifier scope interpretation in Japanese-speaking children and adults: a picture-selection study
- Incorrect association of the focus particle dake: new evidence from child Japanese
- Exploring the emergence of language-unique event perception and description in children
- The empathetic utterance-final particle -ne in Japanese: a study on its phonological representation
- Similarity effect in morphological generalization: Using the volitional form elicited production task of Japanese verbs with suru ending
- The role of pitch accent in lexical recognition in Japanese: evidence from event-related potential and gamma-band activity