Re: Phonology and Questions

Luca Mangiat <mangiat@...> wrote:


[about Japanese vowels]
>> All native and non-native speakers I've had contact with
>> agree that they seem to appear predictably between unvoiced
>> consonants, or in final position after an unvoiced consonant.
>>
>Do they become voiceless even if they're stressed?

There's no stress accent in Japanese (all syllables, or better
morae, are pronounced with equal force), but pitch accent (low
vs. high pitch). And yes, I forgot to add "... when not high pitch".
That is, high pitched vowels are always voiced (AFAIK); low
pitched ones become unvoiced as explained above.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  "... When all men on earth think, day and night, about the
   Zahir, which one will be a dream and which one a reality?"
                              Jorge Luis Borges, _The Zahir_