Rule-ambiguity and distributional play in asynchronous L2 shiritori

Abstract

Shiritori chains words so that each begins with the final mora of the previous (e.g., sakura → rakuda → daikon); a word ending in n (ん) loses. The game imposes a dynamic phonological constraint on lexical retrieval. We analyze 9,891 moves from 568 second-language (L2) Japanese learners playing asynchronously on a public web forum, and argue that the phonological constraint is processed at three dissociable levels. At the level of content, higher-proficiency players produce rarer words. At the level of strategy, avoidance of trap-ending morae is individually learned from experience but unrelated to proficiency; in contrast, vocabulary sophistication tracks the community, not personal history — a community/individual dissociation. At the level of rule interpretation, players differ in how they resolve formally ambiguous yōon cases.