Katsuo Tamaoka
Biographic Data
| ID | 260482 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Katsuo Tamaoka |
| GIVEN NAMES | Katsuo |
| FAMILY NAME | Tamaoka |
| SIGNATURE | TAMAOKA K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Nagoya University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1192-0358 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
How Vietnamese tackle Japanese kanji
This study explored kanji handwriting behavior of Vietnamese learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL), focusing on single-kanji words with Kun-readings to minimize phonological overlap between Japanese and Vietnamese. Participants completed a real-time handwriting task using a stylus and tablet. The study analyzed writing latency, duration, and accuracy, examining how these were influenced by lexical knowledge, kanji frequency, visual com…
Anticipating at a Distance
This study examined how native Japanese speakers and Chinese learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) process classifier–noun agreement involving short‐ and long‐distance dependencies. Using a maze task, participants read sentences in which classifiers agree locally either with the subject noun or with a distant object noun. Native speakers showed faster reaction times for short‐distance dependencies and a significant slowdown at the verb…
Constructing a web-accessible lexical database for core Tongan vocabulary
According to UNESCO. 2020. World atlas of languages , 3rd edn. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Available at: https://en.wal.unesco.org , the Tongan language is classified as ‘potentially vulnerable.’ This study aimed to identify a core Tongan vocabulary and develop a web-searchable database to support the preservation and accessibility of the language. Due to the lack of a large-scale corpus for calculating lexic…
The Acquisition of Japanese Sound‐Symbolic Words by Chinese JFL (Japanese as a Foreign Language) Learners
This study examined how Chinese learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) acquire sound‐symbolic words, with a particular focus on phonomimes (mimetic sounds) and phenomimes (mimetic states). A multiple‐choice test was developed using 12 sound‐symbolic words that can function as both phonomimes and phenomimes, yielding 24 test items. In addition, a lexical knowledge test was administered. A total of 141 Chinese JFL learners participated. S…
Parallelism Between Sentence Structure and Nominal Phrases in Japanese
The present study investigated the canonical position of instrumental and locative adverbial phrases in both Japanese sentences and noun phrases to determine whether the canonical positions are parallel. A series of sentence/phrase decision tasks were used to compare sentences with different word-orders, including sentences with S Adv OV (S is subject phrase, Adv adverb, O object phrase and V verb), Adv SOV, S Adv OV and SO Adv V word orders. S A…
A Picture-Book Based Corpus Study on the Acquisition of wh -words in Japanese
Clancy (1989. Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language , 16(2), 323–47) claims that the developmental order of wh -questions in first language acquisition follows the order: what = where Studies in first and second language acquisition (pp. 17–44). New York, NY: Newbury House Publishers) further argues that a mother’s order of introducing wh -questions might be influenced by her assumption of a child’…
Lexical accent perception in highly-proficient L2 Japanese learners
This article reports empirical findings on the roles of domain-general resources and language-specific experience in the second language (L2) acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch accent. Sixty-one advanced-proficiency L2 Japanese learners from two first languages (L1s), Mandarin Chinese and Korean, identified and categorized Japanese nouns embedded in short sentences in two aurally-presented tasks. Mixed effects models showed that although the t…
Disambiguation and Integration in Korean Relative Clause Processing
Predicting lexical accent perception in native J apanese speakers
Spoken language perception may be constrained by a listener's cognitive resources, including verbal working memory ( WM ) capacity and basic auditory perception mechanisms. For J apanese listeners, it is unknown how, or even if, these resources are involved in the processing of pitch accent at the word level. The present study examined the extent to which native Japanese speakers could make correctness judgments on and categorize spoken Japanese …
Constructing initial phonology in M andarin C hinese
Recent research has put forward the idea that C hinese speech production is governed by the syllable as the fundamental phonological unit. However, it may be that onset priming might be more difficult to obtain in M andarin C hinese. Therefore, in this study, the degree of overlap between prime and target was increased from C to CV (i.e., extending beyond the phoneme) as well as whether primes and targets had an overlapping structure ( CV vs. CVN…
Pre- and Post-head Processing for Single- and Double-Scrambled Sentences of a Head-Final Language as Measured by the Eye Tracking Method
On the (non)universality of the preference for subject-object word order in sentence comprehension
The processing load of sentences with three different word orders (VOS, VSO, and SVO) in Kaqchikel Maya was investigated using a sentence-plausibility judgment task. The results showed that VOS sentences were processed faster than VSO and SVO sentences. This supports the traditional analysis in Mayan linguistics that the syntactically determined basic word order is VOS in Kaqchikel, as in many other Mayan languages. More importantly, the result r…
Prosodic matters in intervention effects in Japanese
Applicability of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory to a Non-Western Culture
To examine applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to facework in a non-Western culture, we conducted a questionnaire survey of native Japanese speakers. A rank order of influences on facework behavior was investigated among the five factors: (a) intrinsic factor (Ri; that is, effects caused by difference in settings), (b) contextual factor (Rc; that is, effects caused by difference in types of interlocutor's contradictory attitud…
Psycholinguistic Evidence for the VP-Internal Subject Position in Japanese
The question of whether the subject stays in its thematic position within the VP or moves to Spec, TP is difficult to answer with respect to free word order languages such as Japanese because the surface constituent orders in these languages do not necessarily provide sufficient information to determine syntactic positions. In this article, we present psycholinguistic evidence for the theoretical hypothesis that, in Japanese, the subject must mov…
Japanese Mental Syllabary and Effects of Mora, Syllable, Bi-mora and Word Frequencies on Japanese Speech Production
The present study investigated the existence of a Japanese mental syllabary and units stored therein for speech production. Experiment 1 compared naming latencies between high and low initial mora frequencies using CVCVCV nonwords, indicating that nonwords with a high initial mora frequency were named faster than those with a low frequency initial mora. Experiments 2 and 3 clarified the possibility of CV light and CVN/CVR heavy syllables as being…
Identifying empty subjects by modality information
Priority Information Used for the Processing of Japanese Sentences
The present study investigated scrambling effects on the processing of Japanese sentences and priority information used among thematic roles, case particles and grammatical functions. Reaction times for correct sentence decisions were significantly prolonged for scrambled active sentences with transitive verbs in the first experiment and with ditransitive verbs in the second experiment. Errors were made with scrambled sentences more than canonica…
The cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords in katakana
The present study examined two questions concerning the cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords borrowed from English and written in katakana. The first question was whether “interlexical activation” occurs between Japanese and English. Results from a lexical decision task showed that loanwords phonetically similar to the original English words were judged with the same speed and accuracy as those being phonetically dissimilar to their origina…
The Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling in the Processing of Visually Presented Japanese Sentences
Errors in writing Japanese kanji
The present study examined handwriting errors of kanji by Japanese schoolchildren, college students and second-language learners of Japanese. Errors made by all these three groups of participants were collected and used as research data. Japanese college students made phonologically related errors in writing kanji rather than orthographically related or semantically related errors. In contrast, Japanese schoolchildren in Grade 7 made mainly ortho…
Priority Information Used for the Processing of Japanese Sentences
The present study investigated scrambling effects on the processing of Japanese sentences and priority information used among thematic roles, case particles and grammatical functions. Reaction times for correct sentence decisions were significantly prolonged for scrambled active sentences with transitive verbs in the first experiment and with ditransitive verbs in the second experiment. Errors were made with scrambled sentences more than canonica…
Psycholinguistic Evidence for the VP-Internal Subject Position in Japanese
The question of whether the subject stays in its thematic position within the VP or moves to Spec, TP is difficult to answer with respect to free word order languages such as Japanese because the surface constituent orders in these languages do not necessarily provide sufficient information to determine syntactic positions. In this article, we present psycholinguistic evidence for the theoretical hypothesis that, in Japanese, the subject must mov…
On the (non)universality of the preference for subject-object word order in sentence comprehension
The processing load of sentences with three different word orders (VOS, VSO, and SVO) in Kaqchikel Maya was investigated using a sentence-plausibility judgment task. The results showed that VOS sentences were processed faster than VSO and SVO sentences. This supports the traditional analysis in Mayan linguistics that the syntactically determined basic word order is VOS in Kaqchikel, as in many other Mayan languages. More importantly, the result r…
The Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling in the Processing of Visually Presented Japanese Sentences
Lexical accent perception in highly-proficient L2 Japanese learners
This article reports empirical findings on the roles of domain-general resources and language-specific experience in the second language (L2) acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch accent. Sixty-one advanced-proficiency L2 Japanese learners from two first languages (L1s), Mandarin Chinese and Korean, identified and categorized Japanese nouns embedded in short sentences in two aurally-presented tasks. Mixed effects models showed that although the t…
Prosodic matters in intervention effects in Japanese
Pre- and Post-head Processing for Single- and Double-Scrambled Sentences of a Head-Final Language as Measured by the Eye Tracking Method
Applicability of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory to a Non-Western Culture
To examine applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to facework in a non-Western culture, we conducted a questionnaire survey of native Japanese speakers. A rank order of influences on facework behavior was investigated among the five factors: (a) intrinsic factor (Ri; that is, effects caused by difference in settings), (b) contextual factor (Rc; that is, effects caused by difference in types of interlocutor's contradictory attitud…
Japanese Mental Syllabary and Effects of Mora, Syllable, Bi-mora and Word Frequencies on Japanese Speech Production
The present study investigated the existence of a Japanese mental syllabary and units stored therein for speech production. Experiment 1 compared naming latencies between high and low initial mora frequencies using CVCVCV nonwords, indicating that nonwords with a high initial mora frequency were named faster than those with a low frequency initial mora. Experiments 2 and 3 clarified the possibility of CV light and CVN/CVR heavy syllables as being…
Errors in writing Japanese kanji
The present study examined handwriting errors of kanji by Japanese schoolchildren, college students and second-language learners of Japanese. Errors made by all these three groups of participants were collected and used as research data. Japanese college students made phonologically related errors in writing kanji rather than orthographically related or semantically related errors. In contrast, Japanese schoolchildren in Grade 7 made mainly ortho…
The cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords in katakana
The present study examined two questions concerning the cognitive processing of Japanese loanwords borrowed from English and written in katakana. The first question was whether “interlexical activation” occurs between Japanese and English. Results from a lexical decision task showed that loanwords phonetically similar to the original English words were judged with the same speed and accuracy as those being phonetically dissimilar to their origina…
The Effects of Phrase-Length Order and Scrambling in the Processing of Visually Presented Japanese Sentences
Priority Information Used for the Processing of Japanese Sentences
The present study investigated scrambling effects on the processing of Japanese sentences and priority information used among thematic roles, case particles and grammatical functions. Reaction times for correct sentence decisions were significantly prolonged for scrambled active sentences with transitive verbs in the first experiment and with ditransitive verbs in the second experiment. Errors were made with scrambled sentences more than canonica…
Identifying empty subjects by modality information
Japanese Mental Syllabary and Effects of Mora, Syllable, Bi-mora and Word Frequencies on Japanese Speech Production
The present study investigated the existence of a Japanese mental syllabary and units stored therein for speech production. Experiment 1 compared naming latencies between high and low initial mora frequencies using CVCVCV nonwords, indicating that nonwords with a high initial mora frequency were named faster than those with a low frequency initial mora. Experiments 2 and 3 clarified the possibility of CV light and CVN/CVR heavy syllables as being…
Psycholinguistic Evidence for the VP-Internal Subject Position in Japanese
The question of whether the subject stays in its thematic position within the VP or moves to Spec, TP is difficult to answer with respect to free word order languages such as Japanese because the surface constituent orders in these languages do not necessarily provide sufficient information to determine syntactic positions. In this article, we present psycholinguistic evidence for the theoretical hypothesis that, in Japanese, the subject must mov…
Applicability of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory to a Non-Western Culture
To examine applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to facework in a non-Western culture, we conducted a questionnaire survey of native Japanese speakers. A rank order of influences on facework behavior was investigated among the five factors: (a) intrinsic factor (Ri; that is, effects caused by difference in settings), (b) contextual factor (Rc; that is, effects caused by difference in types of interlocutor's contradictory attitud…
Prosodic matters in intervention effects in Japanese
Pre- and Post-head Processing for Single- and Double-Scrambled Sentences of a Head-Final Language as Measured by the Eye Tracking Method
On the (non)universality of the preference for subject-object word order in sentence comprehension
The processing load of sentences with three different word orders (VOS, VSO, and SVO) in Kaqchikel Maya was investigated using a sentence-plausibility judgment task. The results showed that VOS sentences were processed faster than VSO and SVO sentences. This supports the traditional analysis in Mayan linguistics that the syntactically determined basic word order is VOS in Kaqchikel, as in many other Mayan languages. More importantly, the result r…
Predicting lexical accent perception in native J apanese speakers
Spoken language perception may be constrained by a listener's cognitive resources, including verbal working memory ( WM ) capacity and basic auditory perception mechanisms. For J apanese listeners, it is unknown how, or even if, these resources are involved in the processing of pitch accent at the word level. The present study examined the extent to which native Japanese speakers could make correctness judgments on and categorize spoken Japanese …
Constructing initial phonology in M andarin C hinese
Recent research has put forward the idea that C hinese speech production is governed by the syllable as the fundamental phonological unit. However, it may be that onset priming might be more difficult to obtain in M andarin C hinese. Therefore, in this study, the degree of overlap between prime and target was increased from C to CV (i.e., extending beyond the phoneme) as well as whether primes and targets had an overlapping structure ( CV vs. CVN…
Disambiguation and Integration in Korean Relative Clause Processing
Lexical accent perception in highly-proficient L2 Japanese learners
This article reports empirical findings on the roles of domain-general resources and language-specific experience in the second language (L2) acquisition of Japanese lexical pitch accent. Sixty-one advanced-proficiency L2 Japanese learners from two first languages (L1s), Mandarin Chinese and Korean, identified and categorized Japanese nouns embedded in short sentences in two aurally-presented tasks. Mixed effects models showed that although the t…
A Picture-Book Based Corpus Study on the Acquisition of wh -words in Japanese
Clancy (1989. Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language , 16(2), 323–47) claims that the developmental order of wh -questions in first language acquisition follows the order: what = where Studies in first and second language acquisition (pp. 17–44). New York, NY: Newbury House Publishers) further argues that a mother’s order of introducing wh -questions might be influenced by her assumption of a child’…
Parallelism Between Sentence Structure and Nominal Phrases in Japanese
The present study investigated the canonical position of instrumental and locative adverbial phrases in both Japanese sentences and noun phrases to determine whether the canonical positions are parallel. A series of sentence/phrase decision tasks were used to compare sentences with different word-orders, including sentences with S Adv OV (S is subject phrase, Adv adverb, O object phrase and V verb), Adv SOV, S Adv OV and SO Adv V word orders. S A…
Constructing a web-accessible lexical database for core Tongan vocabulary
According to UNESCO. 2020. World atlas of languages , 3rd edn. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Available at: https://en.wal.unesco.org , the Tongan language is classified as ‘potentially vulnerable.’ This study aimed to identify a core Tongan vocabulary and develop a web-searchable database to support the preservation and accessibility of the language. Due to the lack of a large-scale corpus for calculating lexic…
The Acquisition of Japanese Sound‐Symbolic Words by Chinese JFL (Japanese as a Foreign Language) Learners
This study examined how Chinese learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) acquire sound‐symbolic words, with a particular focus on phonomimes (mimetic sounds) and phenomimes (mimetic states). A multiple‐choice test was developed using 12 sound‐symbolic words that can function as both phonomimes and phenomimes, yielding 24 test items. In addition, a lexical knowledge test was administered. A total of 141 Chinese JFL learners participated. S…
How Vietnamese tackle Japanese kanji
This study explored kanji handwriting behavior of Vietnamese learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL), focusing on single-kanji words with Kun-readings to minimize phonological overlap between Japanese and Vietnamese. Participants completed a real-time handwriting task using a stylus and tablet. The study analyzed writing latency, duration, and accuracy, examining how these were influenced by lexical knowledge, kanji frequency, visual com…
Anticipating at a Distance
This study examined how native Japanese speakers and Chinese learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) process classifier–noun agreement involving short‐ and long‐distance dependencies. Using a maze task, participants read sentences in which classifiers agree locally either with the subject noun or with a distant object noun. Native speakers showed faster reaction times for short‐distance dependencies and a significant slowdown at the verb…
Linguistics (17 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (9 works) · Artificial Intelligence (8 works) · Natural language processing (8 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Cognition (5 works)