title: Rendaku (Japanese sequential voicing) as rule application: an ERP study.
abstract: Japanese sequential voicing (rendaku) is a process of voicing the initial obstruent of the second member of a compound word in Japanese (e.g. hon 'book'+tana 'shelf'→hon-dana). We conducted an event-related potential measurement experiment to investigate whether rendaku is a regular process of rule application or an analogical process based on lexical memory. When rendaku was applied wrongly to words lexically specified to resist rendaku, a left anterior negativity component, followed by a P600 was observed, whereas applying rendaku against a phonological constraint known as Lyman's law elicited a P600 component alone. Failure of rendaku application where it should apply yielded an N400. These results suggest that rendaku is a process involving rule application.
authors.affiliation: aCenter for Evolutionary Cognitive Sciences bDepartment of Language and Information Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo cFaculty of Economics, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Yoko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugioka
authors.forename: Takane
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ito
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult