new Japanese corpus

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES,
   I am happy to announce the addition to CHILDES of a new Japanese
corpus from Susanne Miyata of Aichi Shukutoku Junior College.  Susanne
had already contributed one corpus from Aki earlier.  This new corpus
is the Ryo corpus.  Our thanks to Susanne for making available the
first data on the acquisition of Japanese.  These data are in
japanese.sit and japanese.zip on the server.

--Brian MacWhinney


The combined readme file (which is now also in the database manual) for
the two corpora is as follows:

************************

Japanese - Miyata
Miyata, Susanne
Aichi Shukutoku Junior College
23 Sakuragaoka Chikusa-ku
Nagoya 464 Japan
smiyata at asjc.aasa.ac.jp

If you use this data or parts of it, please send one printed copy of
your article/publication to Susanne Miyata
Warnings
a) These data are not suitable for the study of the mother¹s overall
language behavior, except for questioning and answering behavior. The
Aki data were originally sampled for the study of the child¹s question
development and many remarks of the mother are not transcribed. These
omitted parts are unfortunately *unmarked*.
b) Reliability was not checked.
c) The length of the observational sessions differ.
Pseudonyms
Aki and Ryo¹s parents gave their kind consent for the publication of
this data. However their names have been replaced with pseudonyms to
preserve a minimum of privacy.
 History
This data was collected during the preparation of a dissertation about
question acquisition (starting at Nov.17th, 1986 when Ryo was 1;3.3,
and ending at Sep.13th, 1988, at 3;0.30). The children were observed
once a week for about one hour at their home while playing with their
mother. In the previous observations it had proved convenient for both
mother and observer to fix weekday and time. As Aki and Ryo were quite
late risers, we decided to start each session after 10 o¹clock in the
morning. After a short period of excitement, the child would settle
down to play. The videorecordings started usually about 10:20. For the
recording I held the camera in my lap (rather than in front of my
face), a method that had proved effective in prior observations. The
setting was free indoor play. The mother was instructed to ³make the
child speak¹, but there were no regulations concerning the kind of play.
The transcription was done in Romaji (Hebon) rather than in Japanese
script, in order to better preserve the actual pronunciation. I also
used UNIBET symbols, especially when the meaning of the utterance was
unclear. For slightly deviant items with clear meaning no phonetical
transcription is provided. The transcription was done in JCHAT 1.0
Hebon, using WAKACHI98 (see Oshima/MacWhinney eds. 1995, Miyata/Naka
1998).Situational cues were provided to a certain extent, to make it
possible to follow the conversation without visual cues.
Codes
Question intonation was coded using $FIN (falling intonation) and $RIN
(rising intonation). Where unmarked, assume rising intonation.
Wa-questions were coded (see Miyata 1992, 1993) using the following
four codes:
$WAP wa-Question(Place)   papa wa?                where is Papa?
$WAN wa-Question(Name)    kore wa?                what is this?
$WAE wa-Question(Educational)   gomen ne wa?      what about ³sorry¹?
$WAG wa-Question(General) papa wa ookii. mama wa? Papa is big. What
about Mama?
The final particles ³no² and ³wa² which are homophonic to case
particles, have been marked as ³no at fp² and ³wa at fp².
 MLU computation
There are 3 different bi-monthly MLU values: Jiritsugo-fuzokugo-MLU
(Ogura 1998), Morikawa-shiki-MLU and Minami-shiki-MLU. The first one
counts words and particles, the second one all morphemes except PRES
and the third one includes PRES. For details see Miyata (1998).
Biographical data
Aki was born on 27-Sep-1987 in Nagoya, the firstborn child. His mother
was 31 years old at the time of his birth. Pregnancy and delivery were
normal. Aki¹s birth weight was 2870 g. His physical development was
normal, aside from a 6-day hospital stay (2;4.30-2;5.4) due to a small
operation (surgical cut of a short thumb sinew), and he was healthy
throughout the observation.
Aki was an active, curious, fearless child, very interested in books
and stories. However, his concentration span was quite short, and he
would soon grow weary. His pronunciation was very clear. He uttered his
first word at 1;8. In February 1995, he was an average student in the
1st grade of primary school.
Participants
AMO, Mother, called ³Okaasan², 32 years, pianist, part-time lecturer in
the piano section of a senior high school in Nagoya, and gives private
lessons, and concerts.
AFA, Father, called ³Otoosan², associate professor for biogenetics at a
University in a nearby town to Nagoya
REE, 2-year-old younger brother Ree, called ³Reechan², born 22-AUG-89
(Aki¹s age: 1;10:26)
OBA, baby sitter, called ³Obasan², 61 years, no university degree
BAA, Grandmother, maternal), called ³Baaba², former primary school
teacher
OOB, Grandmother, paternal, called ³Obaasan², housewife
SUZ, Investigator, called ³Suuze(san)², friend of AMO, AKI, AMO, AFA,
REE live together. Occasionally BAA and sometimes also OOB come to
visit.
Situational descriptions
The family lives in an apartment in the center of Nagoya. The apartment
consists of:
B	bath, called ³ofuro²)
T 	toilet, called ³toire²
H	long hall, called ³rooka²
P	piano room, called ³piano no heya², normally closed
TA 	tatami room, called ³tatami no heya², open to living room, serves
as sleeping room at night,
L	living room, called ³ima² or ³oheya², room where Aki¹s toys and books
are stored
K	dining kitchen, called ³daidokoro², open to living room
kk	kitchen counter
TT	dining table
V	balcony (called ³beranda², in front of piano room, tatami room,
living room)

Publications using these data should cite:

Miyata, Susanne 1995, The Aki Corpus - Longitudinal Speech Data of a
Japanese Boy aged 1.6-2.12 -, Bulletin of Aichi Shukutoku Junior
College No.34, 1995:183-191

Additional relevant publications include:

Miyata, S. (1993) Japanische Kinderfragen: Zum Erwerb von Form - Inhalt
- Funktion von Frageausdrücken, Hamburg (OAG)
Miyata, S. (1992) Wh-Questions of the third kind: The strange use of
wa-questions in Japanese children, Bulletin of Aichi Shukutoku Junior
College, 31, 151-155
Miyata, S. & Naka, N. (1998) WAKACHI98, JCHAT¹98 CD-ROM Miyata, Susanne
1998, Nihongo Kakutoku to MLU keisan: Slice MLU, paper   presented at
the 6th meeting of JSDP, March 1998.
Oshima-Takane, Y. & MacWhinney, B. 1995, (rev. ed. 1998). CHILDES
Manual for Japanese, McGill University /Chukyo University.