How Differently Postposition ni and e in Newspaper Headings Are Comprehended?

Abstract

Some literature on Japanese grammar has argued that Japanese postpositions ni and e are not differentially comprehended by native Japanese speakers reading sentences that include these postpositions. Other Japanese grammar books, however, explain that ni and e have clearly different meanings. This study was designed to ascertain whether Japanese readers can, in fact, distinguish between ni and e during sentence comprehension. Two experiments were conducted in which news headings were presented with or without ni or e , or after interchanging ni and e. Participants read the headings silently, or read them aloud, while the reading time was measured. The results of silent reading indicated no evidence that participants consciously differentiated between ni and e. The results of oral reading, however, indicated that participants took significantly longer for reading headings when e was replaced by ni than when reading the corresponding original headings. These findings indicated that participants experience difficulty in inferring meaning due to the replaced postposition, ni. It is concluded that native speakers can comprehend the difference between ni and e , especially when they read headings.