15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)

Barcelona, Spain
August 3-9, 2003


Effects of Foot Structure on Mora Duration in Japanese?

Mitsuhiko Ota (1), D. Robert Ladd (1), Madoka Tsuchiya (2)

(1) University of Edinburgh, UK
(2) University of London, UK

We investigated the role of foot structure on mora duration in Japanese. Out initial hypothesis was that moras in foot-final position are longer than moras in the same foot. Ten speakers of Tokyo Japanese read a set of surnames of the form CVCVCVCV, in which the second and fourth CVs were seen to correspond to foot-final moras. The analysis showed no support for foot-final mora lengthening. However, we found evidence for word-final lengthening and within-mora/between-mora duration compensation. Though not conclusively, the results are consistent with the interpretation that the bimoraic foot constitutes a domain of compensation effects of mora duration in Japanese.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Ota, Mitsuhiko / Ladd, D. Robert / Tsuchiya, Madoka (2003): "Effects of foot structure on mora duration in Japanese?", In ICPhS-15, 459-462.