Abstract
Metalinguistic Awareness of syllabic morae is the ability to recognize a syllabic mora (a nasal coda, a geminate stop consonant, and a long vowel in this study) as one mora. It has been said to play a significant role for the acquisition of Japanese Kana letters, especially for syllabic morae. However the process of the acquisition is yet to be made clear. The goal of this study is to therefore consider how such metalinguistic awareness of syllabic morae is developed in young Japanese children, through the comparison between children living in Yokohama where morae are counted and Fukaura where morae are not. Two small studies were conducted to examine whether they use mora or syllable in segmenting words with special morae. The results show that the children living in Fukaura recognize syllabic morae less than those in Yokohama, especially for long vowels and nonsense words. It suggests that input is significant for young children to develop their metalinguistic awareness of syllabic morae.
