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Re: ReTonogenesis

From:Kevin Athey <kevindeanathey@...>
Date:Thursday, February 3, 2005, 14:34
>From: Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> > >Kevin Athey <kevindeanathey@...> writes: > > 1) Pitch accent: (Japanese) Each word may or may not have an accented > > syllable. The relative pitch of each syllabe (H and L in Japanese) is > > determined by where it falls relative to the accented syllable. That >is, in > > fact, all the accent means. Length and amplitude do not generally vary, >as > > they would in a stress accent. > >Wait -- I thought that the Japanese accent falls on morae *breaks*, >not on the morae themselves. Therefore, an n-morae word has (n+1) >accent positions. The pitches generated by the accent, of cause, >materialise on the morea then. > >Maybe when you say that a word has *no* accent, you mean the accent is >at its very end? In that case, a suffixed postposition shows the >pitch change.
Well, I was being less precise so as to be less verbose, but: As you noted, Japanese pitch accent is moraic, not syllabic. Because of pitch spread to the left, the accent is generally interpreted as a fall in pitch (an thus generally written with a grave accent in linguistic romanization). As the fall in pitch does not occur on a mora, the accent is said to fall on mora breaks. BUT, having studied a lot of African tonality in school, my interpretation would be the other possibility: that of pitch spreading, in which the accent is really H, which spreads left, with an additional rule to drop initial unaccented morae to L. Now, on a word in isolation, the pitch contour is identical to a word with the accent on the final mora. A post-clitic, however, would be H in the first and L in the second. Now, there are a few bound morphemes with their own accent (such as -'masu) that sort of steal the accent of the morpheme they're attached to. In this case, the entire suffix is NOT of uniform tonality. This is my interpretation, I am aware of others. It's worth noting, though, that while I have done some research in this area for a couple of classes and my own edification, I would not consider myself a Japanese expert by any stretch. Take anything I say here (or anywhere, for that matter) with the usual grain of salt. Athey _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

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Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>