Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

VOT data from 103 young speakers across eastern Japan reveal three regional laryngeal patterns, including an aspiration-like system in Tohoku. These findings suggest that voicing- and aspiration-based contrasts can coexist and may be derived from a unified representation.

Paper long abstract

This study investigates the phonological representation of laryngeal source contrasts in Japanese and the regional variation found among younger speakers in eastern Japan. Cross-linguistically, word-initial obstruents are often used to diagnose laryngeal contrasts because this position is prosodically strong and exhibits relatively stable phonetic cues compared with weaker environments such as intervocalic or word-final positions. Previous typological research has examined these contrasts using a range of acoustic parameters, including voice onset time (VOT) (Lisker & Abramson 1964), low-frequency energy reduction during closure, and the presence or absence of F1 cutback.

Within Element Theory (Harris 1994; Backley 2011), stop contrasts are represented with combinations of |ʔ| (closure), |H| (frication/aspiration), and |L| (voicing). Voiceless unaspirated stops (0 VOT) correspond to |ʔH|, voiced stops (−VOT) to |ʔHL|, and voiceless aspirated stops (+VOT) to |ʔHH|. Two-way laryngeal systems are therefore classified either as voicing languages, contrasting |ʔH| and |ʔHL|, or aspiration languages, contrasting |ʔH| and |ʔHH|. Although Japanese has long been analysed as a voicing language (Shimizu 1996), the classification has not been systematically re-examined for younger speakers across different regions.

To address this gap, we measured word-initial VOT values for /b d g/ and /p t k/ produced by 103 native speakers (mean age 20.8 ± 2.4) from Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, and neighbouring regions. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on mean VOT values revealed three major patterns: Cluster 1 (primarily Kanto–Chubu) showed −17.7 ms for voiced stops and 42.2 ms for voiceless stops; Cluster 2 (Kanto–Hokuriku–Tohoku) showed slightly positive VOT for voiced stops (8.9 ms) with slightly longer voiceless values (42.2 ms); and Cluster 3 (mainly Tohoku) showed consistently positive VOT for voiced stops (15.1 ms) and markedly longer VOT for voiceless stops (59.3 ms). The third pattern points toward an aspiration-type contrast, partly consistent with Takada (2011).

To capture this internally conditioned variation, we propose a unified underlying representation combining properties of |H| and |L|, with regional outcomes derived through selective suppression of one element. Suppressing |L| yields |ʔH| (/d/-like), while suppressing |H| yields |ʔH| (/t/-like). This model predicts that aspiration- and voicing-based systems may coexist within Japanese.