ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2006
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2006

Utterance final forms in dialogues by young Japanese: a syntactic and prosodic analysis

Yukihiro Nishinuma, Akiko Hayashi, Hiroko Yabe

This work reports findings on the relationship between speaker-sex and linguistic behavior among young Japanese in explanation-giving dialogues. The relationship between speaker-sex and (1) the choice of utterance final forms; (2) the prosodic characteristics on these forms, has thus been examined. Data obtained from 110 students of the Tokyo area revealed no statistically significant effect of the sex factor in the syntactic forms used. However utterance final syllables had a statistically significant effect both on rhythm and intonation.