The average score is 1.478 from the plosive updates, step one.45 on the fricative status, step one.707 regarding nose updates, and you may step 1.942 in the liquid updates. The lowest part from inside the Desk step three summarises the results of modelling from Set step 3. This new baseline is actually the brand new fricative updates, and in addition we opposed this new plosive against. fricative conditions, the brand new nasal versus. fricative standards, plus the drinking water compared to. fricative conditions. Earliest, the difference between the newest plosive and you may fricative requirements wasn’t credible, because the 95% CI on the coefficient imagine provided zero [?0.06, 0.09]. Next, the fresh new nose against. fricative and you may h2o compared to. fricative evaluations showed that both of brand new coefficient rates was indeed confident (? = 0.16) (nasal) and you will (? = 0.3) (liquid) and you will all of new 95% CIs didn’t is no ([0.09, 0.24] (nasal) and you can [0.23, 0.38] (liquid)), and so recommending you to nonce terms having nasals and liquids was indeed evaluated is significantly more kawaii labels than those with fricatives.
Discussion
The modern research showed that (1) labial consonants may feel in the kawaii than simply coronal and you will dorsal consonants, (2) high-regularity consonants will be on the kawaii than low-frequency consonants, and you can (3) drinking water https://kissbrides.com/sv/slovenska-brudar/ /?/ and you can nose /n/ will feel of kawaii than fricative /z/ (and you will plosive /d/). These efficiency suggest that the place-of-articulation feature of kawaii are [labial], and the frequency ability in the kawaii are [high frequency]. The manner-of-articulation feature requires next talk. As the consonant showing the greatest average score is drinking water /?/, we could presume that fashion-of-articulation function from the kawaii is [liquid]. Although not, as Bayesian studies showed, nose /n/ is far more apt to be of the kawaii than fricative /z/. Thus, we can end that liquid and you will nasals, each of being [sonorant], are regarding the kawaii.
General discussion
This study showed that the features of consonants associated with kawaii in Japanese are [labial], [high frequency], and [sonorant]. The motivations for the three features are briefly discussed below. The feature [labial] may be linked to a pouting gesture, that is, a gesture made using both lips can induce Japanese people to feel kawaii (Kumagai, 2020). The feature [labial] may also be linked to the image of babies, in that bilabial consonants are more frequent in the earlier phases of language acquisition (Kumagai and Kawahara, 2020). Thus, it can be said that consonants with feature [labial] can evoke the image of babies, at least in Japanese. The feature [high frequency] may stem from briefness, as the frequency code hypothesis states that high-frequency sounds are associated with smallness (Ohala, 1984, 1994). The feature [sonorant] may be connected to a number of observations on sound symbolic effects in names and shapes. Sonorants are better suited for female names or rounded shapes (Shinohara and Kawahara, 2013; Asano et al., 2015). To summarise, the factors associated with kawaii may include pouting gesture, babyishness, smallness, femininity, and roundness. It is interesting that some of these factors overlap with the factors noted by Kinsella (1995) for cute characters. She noted that ‘The essential anatomy of a cute cartoon character consists in its being small, soft, infantile, mammalian, round, without bodily appendages (e.g., arms), without bodily orifices (e.g., mouths), non-sexual, mute, insecure, helpless or bewildered’. (p. 226; emphasis mine). Taking the fact into consideration that Kinsella (1995) was published more than 25 years ago, it is inferred that something that evokes kawaii in the minds of Japanese speakers has not changed for at least 25 years.
As noted in the introduction section, it is well known that sound symbolism plays an important role in ; Klink and Wu, 2014). The exploration of what consonants are better suited for kawaii names is an interesting topic. Based on the above discussion, it is inferred that the consonants that induce the feeling of kawaii among Japanese people include /p/, /?/, and /m/, as the first consonant /p/ is specified with [labial] and [high frequency], the second consonant /?/ with [sonorant], and the third consonant /m/ with [labial] and [sonorant]. Based on his kawaii judgment experiment with Japanese speakers, Kumagai (2019) discusses whether /m/, in addition to /p/, is another consonant expressive of kawaii in Japanese, since his study results demonstrated that fewest differences existed regarding average scores between nonce words with /p/ and those with /m/. In Japanese words or character names that seem to be associated with kawaii, we find examples that contain /p/, /?/, or /m/. For example, a mimetic word, or onomatopoeia, purupuru, is used to express something soft or something that trembles like jelly. We also find a cute character name pomupomu purin ‘Pom Pom Purin’, created by Sanrio. Moreover, Kawahara (2019) reported that bilabial consonants and /?/ are often used in girls’ names in a popular Japanese anime PreCure, broadcast since 2004. It is expected that these consonants will prove applicable in naming anime characters or products that are characterised by kawaii.