Syntactic complexity in Japanese dialects

Abstract

This study attempted the clustering of Japanese dialects at a syntactic level in light of dependency grammar. it is Kagoshima, a southwestern area of Japan, that bears the longest mean dependency distance (1.7851) and Akita of the north-eastern prefecture that shows the shortest mean dependency distance (1.1805). A test of Euclidean distances and clustering based on the MDD brings to light that, the north-eastern and north Kinki areas tend to bear a shorter MDD, indicating a less complex syntax in spoken dialect; the Kantoo and Chuubu, south Kinki, and Shikoku areas tend to present a medium syntactic complexity; the south areas tend to present long MDDs. In a broader sense, the more northward the region, the deeper the syntactic complexity of spoken dialect. The longest DD (3.4) is detected in Gifu prefecture. This has to do with its location, between eastern and western Japan, connected to seven prefectures: Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Shiga, Aichi, Mie and Nagano.