Japanese pitch accent is an important part of the prosody of Japanese, which involves making a certain melody with a series of "high" and "low" pitches, or tones, on a given utterance. Pitch accent is contrastive and can help distinguish words in Japanese, similarly to stress accent in English and contour tones in Chinese. The most studied accent system is of the Tokyo dialect, which differs from other systems such as Kansai or Kyushu.
Tokyo accent This section deals principally with the accent of modern standard Japanese, the Yamanote variety of the Tokyo dialect.
Accentual falls and lowering nuclei In contrast to in English, Japanese is said to have . This means that Japanese speakers make primary use of pitch to distinguish words, while English speakers also make use of length, articulatory strength and vowel quality.
Japanese pitch accent is characterized as "a steep drop from a relatively high pitch to a relatively low pitch," henceforth an "accentual fall" or "accentual drop." In Tokyo Japanese, it is the presence or absence, as well as the exact location, of the accentual fall within an utterance that are lexically contrastive, not the exact pitch contour. This sets Japanese apart as a "pitch-accent" language, as opposed to a "tone" language such as Mandarin, where it is the pitch contour of a word that is contrastive.
The mora at the start of an accentual fall can be called "accented," or an . It carries a high tone and is followed by a mora with a low tone and can be termed the .
Accent patterns Tokyo Japanese belongs to a group of dialects with . This means that a Tokyo noun phrase with n morae has, theoretically, n possible locations for the nucleus, as well as not having a nucleus at all, hence n+1 possible patterns in total; however, nouns with five or more morae do not have all n+1 possibilities, but at most four. Other dialects may only have 2- (such as in the Kagoshima dialect) or 3-pattern (such as in the Goka dialect) accent.
The n+1 possibilities of accent patterns can be classified as follows (in the diagrams to the right, the nuclei are marked in red): : The phrase in question has no nucleus. An unaccented phrase can be of any length. : The phrase has exactly one nucleus which is the first mora, the nth mora, or any mora between them. : The nucleus is the first mora. An initial-accented phrase can be of any length. An initial-accented unimoraic phrase is accentually indistinguishable from an unaccented unimoraic phrase, and the accent in this particular case is only realized before a particle or auxiliary. : The nucleus is neither the first nor last mora. Thus, a medial-accented phrase must necessarily be trimoraic or longer. : The nucleus is the last mora, but not simultaneously the first mora in a unimoraic phrase which, if accented, would be initial-accented instead. Thus, a final-accented phrase must necessarily be bimoraic or longer; it is accentually indistinguishable from an unaccented phrase, and the accent is only realized before a particle or auxiliary. Final accent is the least productive pattern in nucleus-based dialects such as Tokyo-style and Kyoto–Osaka-style dialects, and it is unlikely to occur in newer words.
The actual pitch pattern of a final-accented phrase is generally considered indistinguishable from that of an unaccented phrase. The "final" accent of a word only surfaces as "medial" accent when it is followed by a particle or auxiliary, which is also the only time when a final-accented word is indeed distinct from an unaccented one. However, there are indeed some speakers who do make distinctions between no accent and final accent, for example by raising the overall pitch contour on the final-accented higher than on the unaccented . In one experiment, one college-educated female Tokyo speaker was able to not only produce a consistent, better-than-chance distinction between no accent and final accent, but to also perceive it consistently when she was listening to her own recordings, something none of the other subjects could do.
The phonetic accent contour The actual pitch pattern is not simply a fluctuation between some "high" and "low" tones, but is a phonetically complex contour. In an accented phrase, the basic contour: Starts from a relatively low pitch on the first mora; Rises sharply to a relatively high pitch on the second mora; Continues to rise higher to the highest pitch on the nuclear mora; the "high" on the nucleus is actually higher than the "high" on the second mora; Falls sharply to a very low pitch on the postnuclear mora; Declines further to the last mora.
In contrast, in an unaccented phrase, the basic contour: Starts from a relatively low pitch on the first mora; Rises sharply to a relatively high pitch on the second mora; Declines gradually towards a relatively low pitch on the last mora.
Note that even though the two contours seem to have the same beginning, the first and second mora tend to be slightly higher in the accented contour than in the unaccented one, although this difference is negligible.
Even in an unaccented phrase, the contour declines towards the end of the phrase; and in an accented phrase, the "low" pitch on the postnuclear mora continues to decline as well. Both these cases exemplify a phonetic feature known as "declination".
Initial lowering +Examples of accent in Tokyo Japanese nouns Pattern Unimora Bimora Trimora Unaccented /ki//ki wa/ /haɕi//haɕi wa/ /sakɯɾa//sakɯɾa wa/ Final-accented none /haɕi//haɕi wa/ /jasɯmi//jasɯmi wa/ Initial-accented /ki//ki wa/ /haɕi//haɕi wa/ /midoɾi//midoɾi wa/ Medial-accented none /okaɕi//okaɕi wa/ Henceforth, the complex pitch contour can be simplified into a dichotomy of "highs" and "lows" as follows (the corner indicates an accentual fall): Accented: μμμμμμ Unaccented: μμμμμμ
In both cases, that the first mora has a low tone and the second mora a high tone is referred to as "initial lowering" or "initial dissimilation". This is a phonetic feature whose possible function is to demarcate the beginning of a phrase in Tokyo Japanese. It is a predictable property of a phrase, not of a word. Consider the following: /pɯɾiNtaR ɡa/ ← /ano pɯɾiNtaR ɡa/ ← /tomodacɕi̥ kaɾa kaɾita ano pɯɾiNtaR ɡa/ ← /kinoR tomodacɕi̥ kaɾa kaɾita ano pɯɾiNtaR ɡa/ ←
In all these cases, initial lowering is never applied to any particular word, but to the entire phrase. Other dialects may have "final lowering" (such as in the Hirosaki dialect) or (such as in the Bessho dialect in Yurihama, Tottori).
The two aforementioned basic contours occur during the spans of several morae, which necessitates a minimum mora count, but there are not always enough morae for the contours to be fully realized. A unimoraic phrase only carries a high pitch of a would-be second mora, whether that phrase is supposed to be accented or not, making the initial-accented and the unaccented sound identical without a following particle or auxiliary. Similarly, a bimoraic phrase whose first mora is unaccented has room for initial lowering, but the second mora has the same high pitch whether it is accented or not, making the final-accented and the unaccented sound identical without a following particle or auxiliary. Note, still, that at least some speakers can consistently produce differences between and , and between and , as well as perceive those differences in their own speech. An initial-accented bimoraic or longer phrase does not have room for initial lowering, and the pitch must peak immediately on the first mora, which still begins with a brief, albeit heavily compressed, initial rise from low to high. On the other hand, a second-accented trimoraic or longer phrase does not have room for the slight incline from the high on the second mora to the highest high on the nucleus, and the pitch must peak immediately on the second mora. Thus: Unimoraic, accented or not: μ Bimoraic or longer, initial-accented: μμμμμμ Bimoraic, accented or not: μμ Trimoraic or longer, second-accented: μμμμμμ
Conventionally, accent dictionaries still make clear distinctions in notation between , , and : Accented: キ, ハナ Unaccented: キ, ハナ
Initial lowering may be optionally suppressed, which means that the unaccented first mora simply carries a high tone and flatly transitions into the second mora, if the second mora is (the lengthening mora) or (the moraic nasal); in these cases, initial lowering has been said to occur only in "slow, careful, unnatural" enunciation. If the second mora is (the moraic obstruent), the initial rise only happens from the second to third mora. Thus: The second mora is lengthening: μRμμμμ ~ μRμμμμ The second mora is nasal: μNμμμμ ~ μNμμμμ The second mora is obstruent: μQμμμμ
For the sake of consistency, textbooks and pronunciation guides ignore all these variations and mark all notations with initial lowering: The second mora is lengthening: μRμμμμ The second mora is nasal: μNμμμμ The second mora is obstruent: μQμμμμ
Minor and major phrases Japanese accent is not realized on a word level, but on a phrase level. Even words when pronounced in isolation form their own phrases.
A phrase on which one of the aforementioned accent contours is realized is called an , "minor (phonological) phrase", or . A minor phrase can have maximally one nucleus, and begins with initial lowering. In this article, minor phrases are demarcated with a single vertical bar (the IPA symbol for a minor break): μμμμμ | μμμμμ.
Multiple minor phrases form together an "intermediate phrase", "intonation phrase", or "major (phonological) phrase". In this article, major phrases are demarcated with a double vertical bar (the IPA symbol for a major break): μμμμμ ‖ μμμμμ.
Downstep When an accented minor phrase precedes another accented or unaccented minor phrase, the pitch contour of the second is significantly lower. This is a phonetic feature known as "downstep", "downdrift", or "catathesis". Downstep is said to produce a more natural-sounding contour, making downstepped highs successively lower after each nucleus, rather than keeping all highs equally high as one would in deliberate and slow enunciation.
The domain of downstep is the major phrase, in other words, across minor phrases rather than within them.
Combining minor phrases
Shorter minor phrases can combine to make longer minor or major phrases. This is typical, and separating minor phrases without special emphasis would make one sound artificial like a first-grade schoolchild reciting in class. Accented and unaccented minor phrases combine differently; when two minor phrases combine:
If the first minor phrase is unaccented, it can merge with the second minor phrase to form an even longer minor phrase. The second minor phrase no longer exists separately, and is thus "dephrased": Unaccented + unaccented: μμμμμ | μμμμμ → μμμμμ μμμμμ Unaccented + accented: μμμμμ | μμμμμ → μμμμμ μμμμμ
If the first minor phrase is accented, the two minor phrases can remain separate, with the second minor phrase beginning with initial lowering and becoming downstepped, which is marked here with a superscript downward arrow before the first downstepped high tone, although it is not impossible for the second phrase to be dephrased altogether: Accented + unaccented: μμμμμ | μꜜμμμμ ~ μμμμμ μμμμμ Accented + accented: μμμμμ | μꜜμμμμ ~ μμμμμ μμμμμ
In the above cases, if the first minor phrase is final-accented and the second minor phrase is an initial-accented particle or particle sequence, the latter is highly likely dephrased: Final-accented + initial-accented particle(s): μμμμμ | ꜜμμμ → μμμμμ μμμ
If a minor phrase is "focused" to convey particularly important information, its highest pitch is raised even higher. The focused unaccented first minor phrase stays separate instead of merging with the second minor phrase: Unaccented (focused) + unaccented: μμμμμ | μμμμμ Unaccented (focused) + accented: μμμμμ | μμμμμ