On the generation and perception characteristics of Japanese timing control

We have been studying temporal characteristics of Japanese for decades. Not only acoustic measurements but also perceptual studies on temporal modification have revealed the control principles lying behind manifestation of segmental duration characteristics. This talk tries to introduce familiar generation principles such as ‘‘mora‐timing’’ and phrasal tempo reset from the viewpoint of humans temporal organization through the understanding of duration statistics. Moreover, by showing perceptual characteristics including sentential factors, we would like to propose how linguistic units relate to temporal perception and what kind of information form can be considered in temporal cognition process. Some of our recent efforts will also be presented to investigate language‐dependent temporal characteristics by observing non‐native learners temporal control characteristics. We really expect that we will be able to have a better picture of generation and perception mechanism through the cross check of their characteristic differences between natives and non‐natives. [Work supported by Waseda Univ. RISE research project of ‘‘Analysis and modeling of human mechanism in speech and language processing’’ and Grant‐in‐Aid for and Scientific Research A‐2, No. 16200016 of JSPS.]