Research

As a linguist, I investigate systematic patterns in languages. I am particularly interested in how morphosyntactic patterns—patterns at the levels of words and sentences—are learned and used in different languages (primarily East and Southeast Asian languages such as Japanese, Mandarin, Tagalog) and by different types of speakers (monolinguals, bilinguals, children, adults, and individuals with aphasia). I take such a comparative approach to explore what common mechanisms can account for both the commonalities and differences we find across languages and the processes in which we learn, use, and lose these languages. Specifically, my research projects ask the following three questions:

  1. Which patterns are common across languages that have different sentence structures?
  2. Which patterns are common across different speaker populations?
  3. What factors account for these common patterns?

I utilize and combine multiple investigation methods (e.g., experimentation in fieldwork and lab settings, corpus analysis, consultant judgments, qualitative interviews/surveys) to address these questions in my work. So far, I have worked on topics such as relative clause asymmetries (or accessibility hierarchy), island effects, and cue strengths in transitive expressions.

I am also interested in increasing the visibility of marginalized communities that are experiencing language loss and shift, such as Yoron-Ryukyuan speakers in Japan and heritage speakers of Tagalog in the United States, and to contribute to the maintenance and conservation of their languages.

Publications

The links to the full, published versions are provided for all Open Access (OA) articles. For a non-OA article, the PDF of the accepted version is provided, but please feel free to email me to request the published version.

Refereed Journal Articles

Tanaka, N., Lau, E., & Lee, A. L. F. (2024). On the universality of the subject preference in the acquisition of relative clauses across languages. First Language. https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237241226734 [Open Access]

Tanaka, N., & Cherici, A. (2023). Subject advantage in L1-English learners’ production of Chinese relative clauses. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 52, 405–424. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09865-9 [Open Access]

Tanaka, N., Bondoc, I. P., & Deen, K. (2022). Examining main clause similarity and frequency effects in the production of Tagalog relative clauses. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 15(2), 70–86. https://hdl.handle.net/10524/52506 [Open Access]

Tanaka, N. (2022). Estimating cue strengths in oral production in a Japanese learner corpus. Frontiers in Communication, 7, 827336. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.827336 [Open Access]

Fukuda, S., Tanaka, N., Ono, H., & Sprouse, J. (2022). An experimental reassessment of complex NP islands with NP-scrambling in Japanese. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5737 [Open Access] [Supplementary Files]

Lau, E., & Tanaka, N. (2021). The subject advantage in relative clauses: A review. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 6(1), 34. http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1343 [Open Access]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., & Bondoc, I. P. (2019). An asymmetry in the acquisition of relative clauses: Evidence from Tagalog. First Language, 39(6), 618–632. [Accepted Version PDF; This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723719859090]

Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., & Tanaka, N. (2018). Agrammatism in Tagalog: Voice and relativisation. Aphasiology, 32(5), 598–617. [Accepted Version PDF; This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2017.1366417]

Conference Proceedings

Fukuda, S., Ono, H., Tanaka, N., & Sprouse, J. (2023). Re-examining island effects with NP-scrambling in Japanese: The effect of individual variation. In S. Williamson, A. A. Babayode-Lawal, L. Bosman, N. Chan, S. Cho, I. Fong, & K. Holubowsky (Eds.), Japanese/Korean Linguistics (Vol. 30, pp. 3–27). CSLI. https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/site/JKONLINE/30/toc.shtml [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N. (2023). Reexamining island effects in Japanese complex NPs with argument wh-in-situ. In S. Williamson, A. A. Babayode-Lawal, L. Bosman, N. Chan, S. Cho, I. Fong, & K. Holubowsky (Eds.), Japanese/Korean Linguistics (Vol. 30, pp. 189–203). CSLI. https://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/site/JKONLINE/30/toc.shtml [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N., & Ohba, A. (2023). The comprehension and production of Japanese relative clauses by children. In P. Gappmayr & J. Kellogg (Eds.), BUCLD 47: Proceedings of the 47th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2) (pp. 739–752). Cascadilla Press. https://www.cascadilla.com/bucld47toc.html [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N., Cherici, A., & Chang, Y.-Y. (2022). Estimating cue strengths in child Chinese input and output: A competition model approach to corpus data. In K. Chen (Ed.), Proceedings of the 32nd North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (pp. 581–591). University of Connecticut. [PDF]

Camp, A., & Tanaka, N. (2019). Integration of structural probabilities in speech production: Evidence from Japanese relative clauses. In S. Calhoun, P. Escudero, M. Tabain & P. Warren (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019 (pp. 3295–3298). Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association. https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2019 [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Tanaka, N., Chua, E. C., de Leon, A. C., & Siscar, J. A. (2018). More relativization asymmetries: Children find locative and benefactive relative clauses difficult. In A. B. Bertolini & M. J. Kaplan (Eds.), BUCLD 42: Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol.1) (pp. 72–85). Cascadilla Press. http://www.cascadilla.com/bucld42toc.html [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N., & Schwartz, B. D. (2018). Investigating relative clause island effects in native and nonnative adult speakers of Japanese. In A. B. Bertolini & M. J. Kaplan (Eds.), BUCLD 42: Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2)(pp. 750–763). Cascadilla Press. http://www.cascadilla.com/bucld42toc.html [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2016). An agent advantage in Tagalog relative clause comprehension. In H. Hsieh (Ed.), AFLA 22: The Proceedings of the 22nd Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (pp. 191‒202). Asia-Pacific Linguistics. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/101155 [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2015). Split focus preferences in Tagalog: Evidence from child language. In A. Camp, Y. Otsuka, C. Stabile, & N. Tanaka (Eds.), AFLA 21: The Proceedings of the 21st Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (pp. 279‒288). Asia-Pacific Linguistics. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/95329 [Open Access] [Chapter PDF]

Tanaka, N., & Shirai, Y. (2014). L1 acquisition of Japanese transitive verbs: How do children acquire grammar in the absence of clear evidence? In S. Nam, H. Ko, & J. Jun (Eds.), Japanese/Korean Linguistics (Vol. 21) (pp. 281-295). CSLI. [PDF]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2014). Acquisition of Tagalog relative clauses. In W. Orman & M. J. Valleau (Eds.), BUCLD 38: Proceedings of the 38th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol.2)(pp. 463‒470). Cascadilla Press. [PDF]

Edited Volume

Camp, A., Otsuka, Y., Stabile, C., & Tanaka, N. (2015). AFLA 21: Proceedings of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/95329 [Open Access]

Archived Materials

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2016). “Relative clause elicitation pictures.” Nozomi Tanaka Collection. Kaipuleohone: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/42192. Type: language description. Media: image. Access: public. Resource ID: NT1-001.

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2016). “Relative clause elicited production task.” Nozomi Tanaka Collection. Kaipuleohone: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/42193. Type: language description. Media: image, audio. Access: public. Resource ID: NT1-002.

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2016). “Relative clause comprehension task.” Nozomi Tanaka Collection. Kaipuleohone: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/42194. Type: language description. Media: image. Access: public. Resource ID: NT1-003.

Gao, K. & Tanaka, N. (2015). “The cat story.” Katie Gao Collection—Languages of China. Kaipuleohone: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/37486. Type: language description. Media: text. Access: public. Resource ID: KG2-063.

Presentations

Invited Talks

Tanaka, N., Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., & Deen, K. (2023). Bilingual Tagalog speakers’ comprehension and production of word order and voice. The 15th Philippine Linguistics Congress, University of the Philippines Diliman. Aug 24.

Tanaka, N. (2022). 日本語学習者コーパス内の対話データを用いた手掛りの推定：競合モデルの観点から [Estimation of cues using interview data in a Japanese learner corpus: A competition model approach]. I-JAS研究会 [I-JAS Workshop], National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. Aug 20.

Tanaka, N. (2021). Subject advantage in the acquisition of relative clauses: The case of Japanese. Institute for Japanese Studies, Ohio State University. Nov 2.

Tanaka, N. (2020). Subject preference in Chinese relative clauses: Elicited production data from L1-English learners. Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne. Oct 20.

Tanaka, N. (2019). Asymmetries in Tagalog relative clauses: Insights from child language. School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, August 2.

Tanaka, N. (2018) An asymmetry in Tagalog relative clauses: Evidence from child language. Department of Linguistics, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. September 21.

Tanaka, N. (2018). Island effects in Japanese: Insights from L1 and L2 experimental data. Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. March 16.

Tanaka, N. (2017). Subject relative clause advantage in Tagalog: Insights from child language. Department of English and Applied Linguistics, Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education, De La Salle University-Manila. July 21.

Tanaka, N. (2017). アジアの言語から学ぶ言語の仕組み―タガログ語関係節研究を通して. Ajia no gengo kara manabu gengo no shikumi: Tagarogugo kankēsetsu kenkyū o tōshite [Learning from languages in Asia: Through Tagalog relative clause research]. Institute of Cultural Studies, Chuo University. June 28.

Tanaka, N. (2017). 日本語関係節における「島の制約」―日本語母語話者と日本語学習者の実験データをもとに. Nihongo kankēsetsu ni okeru “shima no sēyaku”: Nihongo bogo washa to nihongo gakushūsha no jikken dēta o motoni [Island constraints in Japanese: Experimental evidence from native and second language speakers]. Department of Languages and Cultures, University of the Ryukyus. June 14.

Tanaka, N. (2016). タガログ語関係節で学ぶ言語の仕組み／アメリカでの研究生活. Tagarogugo kankēsetsu de manabu gengo no shikumi / Amerika de no kenkyū seikatsu [Learning how language works through studying Tagalog relative clauses / Research life in America]. Center for Frontier Science, Chiba University. Oct 7.

Tanaka, N. (2015). It’s all relative: Experimental approaches to Tagalog relative clauses. The 93rd Anniversary of the University of the Philippines Department of Linguistics. August 13.

Tanaka, N. (2014). Relative clause asymmetry: The case of Tagalog. Department of Linguistics, University of the Philippines Diliman. November 11.

Tanaka, N. (2013). Language and identity. Center of Applied Psychology Lecture/Workshop Series, De La Salle University-Dasmariñas. August 13.

Tanaka, N. (2011). 日本語第一言語習得における動詞構造の習得. Nihongo daiichi gengo shūtoku ni okeru dōshikōkōzō no shūtoku [L1 acquisition of Japanese verb argument structure]. Department of Behavioral Sciences, Chiba University. July 26.

Conference Presentations

Tanaka, N. (2023, Mar 11–13). Reexamining island sensitivity in Japanese complex NP islands with argument wh-in-situ. [Paper presentation]. the 30th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (JK30), Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada. [Slides]

Tanaka, N., & Ohba, A. (2022, Nov 3–6). The comprehension and production of Japanese relative clauses by children [Poster presentation]. The 47th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 47), Boston, MA. [Poster]

Cherici, A., Chang, Y.-Y., & Tanaka, N. (2021, July 15–22). Cue strengths in L1 Chinese input and output: A Competition Model approach to corpus data [Poster presentation]. The 2021 International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) Conference, Philadelphia, PA. [Poster][Video]

Cherici, A., Tanaka, N., & Chang, Y.-Y. (2020, October 23–25). Subject preference in L1-English learners’ production of Chinese relative clauses [Poster presentation]. The 2020 Second Language Research Forum (SLRF), Nashville, TN.

Cherici, A., Chang, Y.-Y., & Tanaka, N. (2020, September 18–20). A subject advantage in the production of Chinese relative clauses by L1-English learners [Oral presentation]. The 32nd North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-32), Storrs, CT.

Chang, Y.-Y., Cherici, A., & Tanaka, N. (2020, September 18–20). Estimating cue strengths in L1 Chinese input and output: A Competition Model approach to corpus data [Oral presentation]. The 32nd North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-32), Storrs, CT.

Cherici, A., Chang, Y.-Y., & Tanaka, N. (2019, October 12–13). The production of relative clauses by L1-English learners of Chinese [Oral presentation]. NINJAL-UHM Linguistics Workshop on Syntax-Semantics Interface, Language Acquisition, and Naturalistic Data Analysis, Honolulu, HI. [Slides]

Cherici, A., Chang, Y.-Y., & Tanaka, N. (2019, October 12–13). Evaluation of cues in L1 Chinese input and output: A Competition Model approach to corpus data. [Poster presentation]. NINJAL-UHM Linguistics Workshop on Syntax-Semantics Interface, Language Acquisition, and Naturalistic Data Analysis, Honolulu, HI. [Poster]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., & Bondoc, I. P. (2019, September 20–22). Comprehension and production of word order and voice in bilingual Tagalog speakers. [Poster presentation]. Second Language Research Forum (SLRF) 2019, East Lansing, MI. [Poster]

Camp, A. & Tanaka, N. (2019, August 5–9). Integration of structural probabilities in speech production: Evidence from Japanese relative clauses [Poster presentation]. The 19th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), Melbourne, Australia.

Tanaka, N., & Shirai, Y. (2019, June 7–8). Estimating cue strengths based on corpus data: The case of L1 and L2 Japanese [Poster presentation]. CHILDES, TalkBank, Competition, Emergentism: Honoring the Impact of Brian MacWhinney on Language Research, Pittsburgh, PA.

Tanaka, N., Chang, Y.-Y., Cherici, A., Frank, M., Li, X., Lin, Y.-L., Wong, V., Wu, Y.-S., Yu, L., Adams, M., Nam, B., & Lidster, R. (2019, June 7–8). L1 acquisition of Chinese transitive verb argument structure [Poster presentation]. CHILDES, TalkBank, Competition, Emergentism: Honoring the Impact of Brian MacWhinney on Language Research, Pittsburgh, PA.

Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., & Tanaka, N. (2018, July 21–22). Deficits in Tagalog speakers with agrammatism on declarative clauses [Oral presentation]. The Philippine Association of Speech Pathologists Convention 2018 “Transcend: Moving Toward Excellence in Practice,” Taguig City, Philippines.

Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., & Tanaka, N. (2018, May 10–12). Effects of pronoun case on sentence comprehension among Tagalog-speaking children [Poster presentation]. The 25th Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA 25), Taipei, Taiwan.

Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., & Tanaka, N. (2017, November 9–11). Deficits in declarative sentence production and comprehension among Tagalog speakers with agrammatic aphasia [Poster presentation]. The 2017 American Speech-Language Hearing Association Convention, Los Angeles, CA.

Bondoc, I. P., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Tanaka, N., Chua, E. C., de Leon, A. C., & Siscar, J. A. (2017, November 3–5). More relativization asymmetries: Children find locative and benefactive relative clauses difficult [Poster presentation]. The 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 42), Boston, MA.

Tanaka, N., & Schwartz, B. D. (2017, November 3–5). Investigating relative clause island effects in native and nonnative adult speakers of Japanese [Poster presentation]. The 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 42), Boston, MA.

Tanaka, N., & Schwartz, B. D. (2017, October 12–14). Relative clause island effects: An experimental investigation of native and nonnative Japanese [Poster presentation]. The 25th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (JK 25), Honolulu, HI.

Tanaka, N., & Schwartz, B. D. (2017, August 30–September2). An investigation of relative clause island effects in L1 and L2 Japanese [Poster presentation]. The 27th annual conference of the European Second Language Association (EuroSLA 27), Reading, UK.

Tanaka, N., & Schwartz, B. D. (2017, July 1–2). Relative clause island effects in L1 and L2 Japanese [Oral presentation]. The 19th Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences (JSLS2017), Kyoto, Japan.

Tanaka, N., & Schwartz, B. D. (2017, June 3-4). Relative clause island effects in Japanese: Insights from L1 and L2 data [Oral presentation]. The 11th International Workshop on Theoretical East Asian Linguistics (TEAL-11), Taipei, Taiwan.

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2016, November 4–6). Differential preferences in the acquisition of a symmetrical voice language [Poster presentation]. The 41st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 41), Boston, MA.

Otsuka, Y., & Tanaka, N. (2016, June 9–10). Tagalog oblique relative clauses [Oral presentation.] The 23rd Annual Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA 23), Tokyo, Japan. [Handout]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2015, July 18–23). Relative clause asymmetry: The case of Tagalog [Oral presentation]. The 13th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (13-ICAL), Taipei, Taiwan.

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2015, May 21–24). An agent advantage in Tagalog relative clause comprehension [Oral presentation]. The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA 22), Montreal, Canada.

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2014, June 26–28). Acquisition of Tagalog focus system [Oral presentation]. The 16th Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences (JSLS2014), Saitama, Japan. Received the JCHAT Award (Best Paper). [Slides]

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2014, May 23–25). Split focus preferences in Tagalog: Evidence from child language. [Oral presentation]. The 21st Annual Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA 21), Honolulu, HI.

Tanaka, N., O’Grady, W., Deen, K., Kim, C.-E., Hattori, R., Bondoc, I. P. M., & Soriano, J. U. (2013, November 1–3). Acquisition of Tagalog relative clauses [Oral presentation]. The 38th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 38), Boston, MA. Received the Paula Menyuk Travel Award.

Tanaka, N. (2012, August 3–5). Japanese-Filipino youths as an emerging category of language acquisition [Panel presentation]. In M. Yoneyo-Reyez (Chair), Migration, Language, and Identity of Transnational Japanese-Filipino Youths. The 3rd International Conference on Filipino as Global Language, Manila, Philippines.