Japanese/Korean Linguistics

Minamida (2026) shows that Osaka Japanese exhibits robust wh-island effects based on two experiments: a traditional auditory comprehension experiment with methodological refinements (Experiment 1) and a novel acceptability judgment experiment using interrogative sentence endings (Experiment 2). This study replicates that study for Tokyo Japanese to examine whether wh-island effects arise in this variety and to test the applicability of the methodology across varieties. Experiment 1 does not provide clear evidence for either the presence or absence of wh-island effects in Tokyo Japanese. In contrast, Experiment 2 provides clear evidence for wh-island effects. Given that auditory stimuli require more careful construction than written stimuli because they must reflect the prosodic properties of the language under investigation, the results of Experiment 2 support the conclusion that Tokyo Japanese exhibits wh-island sensitivity. This paper also discusses possible future refinements to the auditory stimuli for Experiment 1.