Re: ReTonogenesis

>From: Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
>
>Maybe it's futile to discuss whether the accent is either on one of
>the morae + the possibility of fully unaccented words or whether the
>accent is between the morae, including in front and behind the word,
>because there is a one-to-one mapping between these possibilities and
>it's just definition what you declare to be the phonemic description,
>which is a model anyway.  Maybe other factors lead to one or the other
>definition.
Actually, there are particles in Japanese with more than one mora, although
only a couple.  As such, one should be able to distinguish between these two
interpretations:

Mine:

HAshi kara would be HLLL
haSHI kara would be LHLL
hashi kara would be LHHH

Yours:

|hashi kara would be HLLL
ha|shi kara would be LHLL
hashi| kara would be LHHL

The distinction is in the last.  (I'm assume the rule for your
interpretation is that the mora after the accent is high, all before it are
high except the first, and all morae after the mora after the accent are
low.  Is this correct?)

I believe that mine is correct in this case.  However, I don't know if I
believe so because this is what is actually observed, or if I believe so
only because the theory I subscribe to backs it up.

>I still wonder where I picked my view up -- it's not my invention, but
>I fail to remember the source.
It's worth noting that I got my interpretation from taking a course in the
structure of Japanese from a L1 Japanese TA, as well as a few independant
sources.  Still, native speakers have a sorry habit of misinterpretting
their own languages (myself included).

<shrug>

Athey

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