The Perception of Number and Gender in the Japanese Language
Abstract
This article investigates how native speakers of Japanese interpret number and gender in a language lacking obligatory morphological marking for either category. Based on a questionnaire completed by 47 native speakers, it analyses the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors guiding interpretation. The findings show that number is primarily determined by contextual and grammatical cues, whereas gender is largely shaped by cultural stereotypes and world knowledge. The study demonstrates that Japanese nominal interpretation relies on contextual inference rather than morphological encoding.
Submitted: Feb. 27, 2026 | Accepted: June 19, 2026 | Published Forthcoming | Language: en
Keywords Number interpretation • Bare nouns • Japanese language • Gender perception • Contextual inference • Plural markers
Copyright © 2026 Paolo Calvetti. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.