Phonological representation in Japanese and American rap music: Further evidence for mora timing

Abstract

This paper investigated how words in Japanese and American rap music were represented in terms of two phonological units, morae and syllables. The main question addressed in this study was to find out which unit was preferred to represent words in Japanese and American rap music. One hundred CVN syllables in two or multi-syllable words were identified from 9 pieces of 2 Japanese musical bands and 27 pieces of 3 American musical bands. Then, the first author set these syllables to music one by one, using a Japanese computer music software to determine how these syllables were assigned to notes. The analysis showed that 73% of the CVN syllables in Japanese rap music were assigned to a note which was two times longer than that of the following note and 27% were assigned to two separate equivalent notes, while 93% of the CVN syllables in American rap music were assigned to a single note which was equivalent to the following note. In other words, the computation of duration was considered to choose notes in the former, while it was not in the latter, suggesting that words in Japanese and American rap music were represented in terms of morae and syllables, respectively.