The syntactic processing of particles in Japanese spoken language

Particles fullfill several distinct central roles in the Japanese language. They can mark arguments as well as adjuncts, can be functional or have semantic funtions. There is, however, no straightforward matching from particles to functions, as, e.g., GA can mark the subject, the object or an adjunct of a sentence. Particles can cooccur. Verbal arguments that could be identified by particles can be eliminated in the Japanese sentence. And finally, in spoken language particles are often omitted. A proper treatment of particles is thus necessary to make an analysis of Japanese sentences possible. Our treatment is based on an empirical investigation of 800 dialogues. We set up a type hierarchy of particles motivated by their subcategorizational and modificational behaviour. This type hierarchy is part of the Japanese syntax in VERBMOBIL.Comment: 8 page

A study of Japanese native and non-native language speakers' perception of gairaigo and the future of gairaigo in the Japanese language : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Japanese at Massey University

This thesis deals with language change in Japanese in relation to loanwords. Japan has a tradition of borrowing from other languages, in particular, from the Chinese language. This tradition continues to the present day with borrowing from Western languages. This thesis first looks at the historical background of loanwords in Japanese. It then sets out to ascertain what the current perceptions are of both native speakers of Japanese and non-native speakers of Japanese in regard to gairaigo from the English language, and what they predict the future holds for gairaigo from the English language in Japanese. The Japanese will use English more as they become increasingly reliant on international trade due to the downturn in the Japanese economy. This thesis will investigate any effect that gairaigo from English might have on Japanese language acquisition by non-native speakers, and determine what effect gairaigo have on native Japanese speakers and their acquisition of English as a second language. It is suggested in this thesis that gairaigo in Japanese that have come from English will in future be used as English by the Japanese. In other words, this thesis suggests that one main purpose of gairaigo may be to facilitate the acquisition of English as a second language by native Japanese speakers

An Approach for Chinese-Japanese Named Entity Equivalents Extraction Using Inductive Learning and Hanzi-Kanji Mapping Table

Named Entity Translation Equivalents extraction plays a critical role in machine translation (MT) and cross language information retrieval (CLIR). Traditional methods are often based on large-scale parallel or comparable corpora. However, the applicability of these studies is constrained, mainly because of the scarcity of parallel corpora of the required scale, especially for language pairs of Chinese and Japanese. In this paper, we propose a method considering the characteristics of Chinese and Japanese to automatically extract the Chinese-Japanese Named Entity (NE) translation equivalents based on inductive learning (IL) from monolingual corpora. The method adopts the Chinese Hanzi and Japanese Kanji Mapping Table (HKMT) to calculate the similarity of the NE instances between Japanese and Chinese. Then, we use IL to obtain partial translation rules for NEs by extracting the different parts from high similarity NE instances in Chinese and Japanese. In the end, the feedback processing updates the Chinese and Japanese NE entity similarity and rule sets. Experimental results show that our simple, efficient method, which overcomes the insufficiency of the traditional methods, which are severely dependent on bilingual resource. Compared with other methods, our method combines the language features of Chinese and Japanese with IL for automatically extracting NE pairs. Our use of a weak correlation bilingual text sets and minimal additional knowledge to extract NE pairs effectively reduces the cost of building the corpus and the need for additional knowledge. Our method may help to build a large-scale Chinese-Japanese NE translation dictionary using mono-lingual corpora

A Preliminary Study on Why Second Language Learners Accept Ungrammatical Sentences: Its Theoretical Implications

Why do second language learners sometimes accept ungrammatical sentences in the target language? In the present study, we focus on Japanese-speaking learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and investigate whether such “grammatical illusion” effect would be observed in them and whether the effect could be dependent on their proficiency.　The results of one acceptability judgment questionnaire experiment and of one preliminary self-paced reading experiment are reported.　The results of the questionnaire experiment showed that the lower-proficiency Japanese EFL learners were more likely to accept ungrammatical sentences in English compared to the higher-proficiency learners.　The results of the self-paced reading experiment indicated that the reading time difference between ungrammatical sentences and their grammatical counterparts was significant for one native English speaker but not for two Japanese EFL learners.　It is suggested that the “grammatical illusion” effect (i.e., erroneous acceptance of ungrammatical sentences) in second language learners is more likely to be observed when their proficiency is lower, and possibly that second language learners can accept ungrammatical sentences during their real-time processing.　We discuss a new approach to second language acquisition from the perspective of the grammatical illusion phenomenon

Critical factors in the teaching of Japanese in New Zealand at years 7 and 8 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Second Language Teaching at Massey University

Current literature about the teaching of Japanese in New Zealand has raised a number of issues. However, there has been no attempt made to rank these issues either in terms of priority or in terms of how they may be addressed. In addition, in the existing literature, the writers have not provided any solutions or recommendations themselves. This research identifies and ranks issues in Japanese language teaching programmes at Years 7 and 8 in the New Zealand school setting. Two professional groups (teachers and principals) were approached to provide the data. Discussions were held in focus groups with teachers of Japanese from around New Zealand. Issues which either constrain or facilitate the implementation of a Japanese language teaching programme were elicited from participating teachers. These issues have been termed "factors" to avoid any negative connotations. Professional responses to the most critical factors were also sought from the teachers. The critical factors generated by teachers were grouped into four broad categories and the focus groups then contributed professional responses to these. Initial results showed that teachers identified "commitment from principal", "pressure and time" and "availability of resources" as being important. Questionnaires were then developed and sent to principals in schools offering Japanese at these levels. Principals identified "commitment from principal", "availability of resources" and "confidence of teachers" as being important. The results of this study are discussed with reference to the current literature and a number of implications for teaching programmes are proposed. These suggestions are intended to guide schools contemplating the introduction of Japanese or another international language at these levels. The model developed for group discussions could be used in further research when trying to determine critical factors in the teaching of either other languages or indeed other curriculum areas

Knowledge graph analysis of particles in Japanese

The theory of knowledge graphs is a structuralistic theory of language. Its ontology consists of eight types of binary relationships and four types of so-called frames. The relationships connect so-called tokens, that represent semantic units. In this way a graph structure arises. Japanese particles are investigated against the background of knowledge graph ontology. It is shown that the structure of Japanese closely resembles the structure of the knowledge graph representation of language

PENGGUNAAN FUKUJOSHI BAKARI DAN KURAI DALAM KALIMAT BAHASA JEPANG

ABSTRACT Ningrum, Sandra Setya. “The use of FukujoshiBakariand Kuraiin Japanese Language Sentence”.Thesis.Departement of Japanese Studies Faculty of Humanities.Diponegoro University.The First Advisor Dra. Sri PujiAstuti, M. Pd. Second Advisor Elizabeth IHNR, S.S., M. Hum. This research aims to provide an explanation regarding fukujoshibakariandkurai because the explanation from Japanese language textbooks are still lacking, it resulting in numerous errors in the use of fukujoshibakariandkurai. To write this thesis, firstly, the author collected data, and then analyze the data, after that, the data presented in a descriptive form. Fukujoshibakariandkuraiin Indonesian language can be interpreted as ‘approximately’ or ‘around’, and it used to indicate an approximate. Although both fukujoshihave the same meaning, but both also have the difference.Fukujoshibakariand kuraiwhich attached to the noun have the same meaning, which are indicate the degree or level and indicate the quantity of approximate amount, timing, size and spacing. Fukujoshibakarican’t replace each other while showing limited activity, describe something that has same level or degree with the exemplified, and when explain something which is taken for granted. Keyword:fukujoshibakari, fukujoshikura