Abstract
“ Haku ” is the most distinct and smallest unit in Japanese pronunciation. It is similar to a syllable but for the following characteristic : i. e., Haku refers to an articulating aspect peculiar to Japanese speech and defined as an intrinsic rhythm characterized by separation of sounds with equal intervals. Thus haku is defined by a time boundary, while a syllable is defined by a phonetical boundary. Haku constitutes a basic rhythmical element of Japanese verse. Here we report on two severe aphasic cases in which this Japanese speech rhythm was preserved. Case 1 spoke each syllable with equal intervals and with no accent. Some syllabic clusters, however, were composed of five and seven syllables, which are reminiscent of familiar meter in Japanese verse. Case 2 produced a rhythm consisting of one and two syllabic units. These two cases suggest that in prepositional language there is a stage in which the native language rhythm is independently produced, and that depending on the degree of brain damage only this stage may be preserved and expressed.
