Ohta, S., On’inteki/imiteki yōin ga rendaku ni ataeru eikyō: Rendaku Dētabēsu to rojisutikku kaiki bunseki o riyōshita kenkyū [Effects of phonological and semantic factors on rendaku: A study using the rendaku database and logistic regression analyses] (in Japanese), Oninkenkyu (Phonological Studies), The Phonological Society of Japan, 18, 85–92, 2015.

Abstract: In the present study, I examined phonological and semantic factors that predict the occurrence of rendaku, or sequential voicing. I targeted 29,385 compound words with clear rendaku occurrences from the rendaku database. Using logistic regression analyses, I confirmed that phonological and semantic factors proposed in previous studies were actually effective for predicting the rendaku occurrence. Moreover, I specified that a geminate consonant in the second element is an effective factor for predicting rendaku occurrence. The logistic regression model accurately predicted the rendaku occurrence for 80% of the compound words. The present study demonstrates that multivariate analyses are effective tools for understanding complex phonological phenomena such as rendaku.