Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Blaðsíða 300

The preference varies according to the name, although there are
strong tendencies within the same name among Japanese subjects.
Úlfhildur is made up of two names and is rather long, and both
Japanese and Icelandic subjects chose not to lengthen the initial
stressed vowel. For most other names, except Gísli and Elín, Japan -
ese subjects tended to choose a longer version. For Saga and Ívar,
all subjects chose /Vr/, inserting an extra mora for the vowel.18
3.6 Treatment of an unaspirated plosive
(voiced or voiceless).
10 tokens: Dagmar, Birta, Bergur, Gísli, Hjördís, Bergur, Helgi,
Ragnheiður, Ragnar, Sindri
2 choices : voiced, voiceless
Japanese plosives may be either voiced or voiceless, whereas Ice -
land ic plosives are categorized by aspiration. according to Pind,
the perceptual boundaries of VOT (voice onset time) in aspirated
and unaspirated Icelandic plosives occur at around 33 msec to 40
msec, depending on the place of articulation and speech rate.19 On
the other hand, the voiced alveolar plosive in Japanese has around
-35 msec VOT, with a voiceless counterpart of around 30 msec
VOT.20 The VOT in Japanese voiceless plosives lies around the
VOT boundary of aspirated and unaspirated plosives in Icelandic.
What is unaspirated in Icelandic might sound like a voiceless plo-
sive to Japanese speakers. Whether Japanese and Icelandic subjects
would categorize unaspirated Icelandic plosives as voiced or voice-
less Japanese plosives remains to be seen. The ten names listed
above contain the sound in question either in the word-initial or the
word-medial position.
TranSLITEraTIng ICELanDIC naMES InTO JaPanESE …
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18 It was brought to my attention after the experiment that the vowel in the first syllable is short in
Gísli, Úlfhildur, Kristín, and Hjördís, but long in the other names. This can explain some of the
tendency here, but not all. In future experiment, these two types should be treated separately.
19 Jörgen Pind, “rate-dependent Perception of aspiration and Pre-aspiration in Icelandic”, The
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49(3)/1996, pp. 745–764, here p. 752.
20 本間弥生、“二つの言語が干渉するとき―英語破裂音の生成の場合”、文学とこ
とば―イギリスとアメリカ　上野直蔵先生追悼論文集、木村俊夫他、東京：南雲
堂、1986, pp. 525–535, here p. 526.
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