# Japanese pitch



## Ilmen

So it was a matter of pitch.  I guess there is a lot of interesting thing to talk about regarding that, maybe should we create a topic for this one day…
By the way, I heard that pitch in Japanese, although not being written, is important for differentiate words pronounced the same, for instance. Is that true? I guess it might be something like pitch in Spanish, for the ones that know it.
Also I heard that the Japanese pitch could change from region to region.

So, is it actually a mean to differenciate words such 鼻 (nose) and 花 (flower), both pronounced as はな, in speech, without any context?

Thank you for advance.


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## almostfreebird

Ilmen said:


> So, is it actually a mean to differenciate words such 鼻 (nose) and 花 (flower), both pronounced as はな, in speech, without any context?



You pronounce 鼻(hana) very flatly like a spanish word "para" in Para Mí,
and 
You pronounce 花(haná) just like a spanish word acá in intonation.


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## Ilmen

Thank you, it is surely useful for speech understanding. ^^

There I found a topic about Japanese pitch (accent), and they use slash ('\' and '/') for pitch change (down and up, respectively) :
*Words accent** topic (2009)*.

For the use of acute accent, must it be put on the vowel only, excepted for the nasal moraic ん (uvular nasal) ?


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## YangMuye

Ilmen said:


> Thank you, it is surely useful for speech understanding. ^^
> 
> There I found a topic about Japanese pitch (accent), and they use slash ('\' and '/') for pitch change (down and up, respectively) :
> *Words accent** topic (2009)*.
> 
> For the use of acute accent, must it be put on the vowel only, excepted for the nasal moraic ん (uvular nasal) ?


That thread was posted by me when I just started to learn Japanese.

The main character of the stress in many European language is not the pitch but the length of vowel. The stressed syllable in English usually has a higher pitch, but not necessary.

In Japanese, a syllable is perceived as acccnted when it's followed by a  steep falling in pitch. The raising on the first syllable is not necessary.

More over, there are no v'N/vN'(N means a syllabic ん) and v'R vR' (R means a long vowel) and v'Q vQ'(Q means っ)contrasts in Japanese, thus it doesn't matter whether N Q or R is raised or not. Usually (c)vN' (c)vR' (c)vQ'are pronounced as pre-fallen (c)v↓N (c)v↓R (c)v↓Q, while (c)vN (c)vR (c)vQ are pronounced as pre-raised ↑(c)vN ↑(c)vR ↑(c)vQ.


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## almostfreebird

Ilmen said:


> I guess it might be something like pitch in Spanish, for the ones that know it.




Yes. There are many Spanish words and phrases whose pronunciation are similar to or almost the same as Japanese words.

バカ　（vaca）
アホ　（ajo）
傘　（casa）
それだ！　（soledad）
駄目　（dame）
ミチコ　（mi chico）
け、ブスか！　（que busca）
ぶらんこ　　（Blanco）
まりこ(maricon)


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## Flaminius

YangMuye said:


> More over, there are no v'N/vN'(N means a syllabic ん) and v'R vR' (R means a long vowel) and v'Q vQ'(Q means っ)contrasts in Japanese, thus it doesn't matter whether N Q or R is raised or not. Usually (c)vN' (c)vR' (c)vQ'are pronounced as pre-fallen (c)v↓N (c)v↓R (c)v↓Q, while (c)vN (c)vR (c)vQ are pronounced as pre-raised ↑(c)vN ↑(c)vR ↑(c)vQ.


I am just wondering what the apostrophe means.  A word boundary?

Anyway, I admit that the status of ん is rather vague.  It is a separate entity in a formal careful speech, independent of the preceding CV unit (thus the term syllabic N) but is a subcomponent of a syllable CVN (thus the term moraic N) in casual hurried speech.  Any which way, in the standard Japanese phonology the first and the second syllables always have different pitch levels.  If the first syllable is pronounced with a high pitch, then the second one is in low pitch and the pitch remains low till the end of the word.  If the first one is in low pitch, then the pitch is raised at the second syllable and the pitch level may or may not remain high till the end of the word.  For 眼科医, the first and the last syllables are low.  Thus the accent pattern is either:
LHL or
LHHL

The first pattern is for a casual fast speech where the /N/ forms a single syllable with /gan/.


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## Ilmen

Interesting. Hmmmm ; I wonder, what about particles? I heard particle are grammatical case, so are part of the preview word in speech, but I also heard they are postposition, like English, Spanish and French prepositions, but placed afterward the word, thus not part of the preview word. How about pitch? Does the add of a particle modify the pitch of a word?
For example, what about the pitch of gankai in the sentences 「眼科医が来た。」and 「眼科医の道具んです。」?


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## YangMuye

> I am just wondering what the apostrophe means. A word boundary?


The so-called アクセント核.



> Any which way, in the standard Japanese phonology the first and the second syllables always have different pitch levels.


Phonology is not Phonetics. And the "standard" is not the right.
According to NHKアクセント発音辞典, that's not the natural pronunciation method.



> Interesting. Hmmmm ; I wonder, what about particles? I heard particle are grammatical case, so are part of the preview word in speech, but I also heard they are postposition, like English, Spanish and French prepositions, but placed afterward the word, thus not part of the preview word. How about pitch? Does the add of a particle modify the pitch of a word?
> For example, what about the pitch of gankai in the sentences 「眼科医が来た。」and 「眼科医の道具んです。」?



I guess it might be
眼↑科↓医が↑来↓た // 眼↑科↓医が来た
眼↑科↓医の道↑具↓なんです

Particle and many words will affect the accent. The rules are rather hard to conclude.

尾高型 becomes 平板型 before の
例：
　部屋↓　＋　の　⇒　部屋の
　日本↓　＋　の　⇒　日本の
　妹↓　　＋　の　⇒　妹の

However there are some nouns which are originally 頭高型 are not affected by this rule.
例：(_ means the devoicing of vowel)
　危↓機　⇒　k_ki↓　　⇒　危機↓の
　附↓近　⇒　h_ki↓n　⇒　附近↓の

Some nouns become 尾高型 when there are adjectives before it.
　〇〇　＋　上　⇒　〇〇上↓　（〇〇う↓え）
　〇〇　＋　人　⇒　〇〇人↓　

There are some words which dominate the accent.
　〇〇　＋　ま↓え　⇒　〇〇ま↓え
　〇〇　＋　ぐ↓らい　⇒　〇〇ぐ↓らい

……


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## almostfreebird

"眼科医が来た" is pronounced like gánkàiga kita

"眼科医の道具なんです" is pronounced like gánkàino dÔgunàndesu

gan is pronounced like Gung in _Gung Ho_.
kai is pronounced like ki in kite.

"desu" is pronounced like des in desperate.


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## Flaminius

YangMuye said:


> I guess it might be
> 眼↑科↓医が↑来↓た // 眼↑科↓医が来た
> 眼↑科↓医の道↑具↓なんです





almostfreebird said:


> "眼科医が来た" is pronounced like gánkàiga kita
> 
> "眼科医の道具なんです" is pronounced like gánkàino dÔgunàndesu


I beg your pardon but don't we pronounce 眼科医が with two low syllables at the end?
[gáŋkáì gà]; or in a more careful speech: [gāŋkáì gà]

The noun "ophthalmologist" has accent nucleus on /ka/ and it's not affected by postpositions or case markers.


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## Ilmen

Yes, YangMuye, I made a mistake writing the sentence 「眼科医の道具*な*んです。」: I forgot the 'な' before the explanatory ～んです, thank you to have corrected it. ^^

I heard that long identical vowel contig (more than three) have pitch changes to show the different morae phonetically. Very long contig of one different vowel only are surely rare, but not impossible ; I just tryed to make the longest sequence of [o] sound I could. There is the sentence:
この王を覆う多い珠玉が、その地方の鉱山に由来する。 (The precious stones that cover this king are from the mines of that region.)
このおうを　おおう　おおいしゅぎょく、そのちほうの　こうざんに　ゆらいする。
Yet, maybe I should have used the ～ている form for 覆う, I'm not sure about it, but it would break my vowel sequence. 

If I didn't make any mistake, it should do nine consecutive [o]: kono ou-o oou ooi-jugyoku...
So, how a native speaker would pronouce such a tricky sentence?


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## YangMuye

> この王を覆う*多い*珠玉


I'm afraid it's ungrammatical, though I'm not sure.

覆う is pronounced as [oː*u*] any way.
東欧を覆う[o↑o.oo.o↓.o↑ou], Wiki said the pitch accent and slight rhythm breaks help you, BUT I do think it will probably become [↑toːoːo.oːu].  You don't need to break the vowels.
I think what I heard it just o~~~~~


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## Flaminius

Hi,
The Wiki article about covering Eastern Europe shows phonological and phonetic descriptions:
/too.oo.oꜜ.oou/
[tòo.ōo.ó.òōú͍]

I wonder, *YangMuye*, where you get the upward arrow sign (↑) from.  In IPA there is superscript up arrow used for upstep, but this does not exist in Japanese.



> BUT I do think it will probably become [↑toːoːo.oːu].  You don't need to break the vowels.


You can make yourself understood by not breaking the vowels ([oːu] for 覆う), but [òōú͍] is neater.

_Tōō o ōu_ forms two accent groups _Tōō o_ and _ōu_.  Whether you break vowels or not, the important thing is that the pitch apex of each first syllable should be lower than that of the remaining part.  The apex pitch is about semitone different (like mi and fa).


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## YangMuye

Flaminius said:


> I wonder, *YangMuye*, where you get the upward arrow sign (↑) from.  In IPA there is superscript up arrow used for upstep, but this does not exist in Japanese.


Umm, unlike the IPA /ꜛ ꜜ/, the ↑ ↓ is just a shorthand which I think is easier to input than the tone diacritics. Since my MS-IME can convert ue and sita to ↑↓.
/e↑e/ = /ěː/
/e↓e/ = /êː/

I have heard that the new version of the NHK accent dictionary(or 新明解, I'm not sure) will adopt such schedule in order to represent more accent patterns(no only 二段式).


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## Ilmen

I'm not sure I fully understood your diacritic pitch notation.
Let's say that H is an high syllabe, M an medium one, and L a low one.
Regarding the arrow notation it's pretty easy:
眼↑科↓医が = LHHLL (if the nasal moraic ん is treated as separate from the first mora [が]) or "gaNKAiga" if we put high morae in upper case.
But as for [gáŋkáì gà] (casual speech) and [gāŋkáì gà] (careful speech), I would like to make sure of the meaning of the diacritics. Is "gá" an raising mora (increasing pitch), or an continuous high one?
I can't figure out their meaning because of the fact they seems to be in conflict with the arrow notation : in [gáŋkáì], the syllabe がん and the syllabe か have the same diacritic, whereas in the arrow notation, they are respectively a low and a high pitch. Why?

Besides, I was wondering how is the pitch of a phrase that end with a gobi. Does it raise on ～よ and ～ね ?

Thank you in advance.


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## Flaminius

People seem to be speaking in tongues about the pitch accent in this thread.     In other words, different people use different notations to describe the phenomenon.

As for myself, because I can only speak of mine with any surety, all my notations in brackets are in accordance with IPA, where accent marks denote tone levels.
[á] is in high tone.
[ā] is in middle tone.
[à] is in low tone.
Reminder: Tones are very subjective and relative.



> 眼科医が = LHHLL
> [I shall refrain from using the up and down arrows because it's not part of my notation.]


This is the phonetic notation (somewhat more theoretical than the phonological system but closer to the perception of native speakers) of the Japanese pitch accent, consisting of high morae (H) and low morae (L).  In this convention, the first and the second morae always have different pitch levels.  If the first mora is high, then the second one is low.  If the first mora is low, then the second one is high.  Another rule is that a word has only one string of highs.  If a L appears the rest of morae are all L; the pitch never rises again.

Now, *YangMuye* mentioned that the first mora of _gankai_ is not any lower than the second one, thus LHHL is hypothetical.  Still, I think this hypothesis is not only a basis for a neat theory but also based on a real phenomenon.  The pitch of a Japanese utterance gradually rises if unhindered by a downstep or a word boundary.  A mora is, however slightly, higher than the one just before.  In this regard, a word may well begin with a relative lowness followed by a relative highness.  This is the distinction that L*H*HL for _gankai_ is meant to capture.



> Besides, I was wondering how is the pitch of a phrase that end with a gobi. Does it raise on ～よ and ～ね?


Sorry, but this is beyond my ability without concrete examples.  Shall we discuss it with specific cases?  perhaps in a different thread or threads?


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## divisortheory

This thread got me to thinking.  What is the word in Japanese used to mean pitch in this context?  My dictionary suggets that either 調 or 調子 might be good choices but just hoping for some confirmation, as Japanese is pretty picky about situational word usage


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## Flaminius

The Japanese word I had in mind was 高低, a word to translate _pitch_ in linguistics.  調 or 調子 is used in musicology.


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## Ilmen

Yes, and 高低 (high and low, rise and fall) is read こうてい.
Pitch accent is 高低アクセント, in opposite with 強弱〔きょうじゃく〕アクセント (stress accent, strong/weak accent).

Flaminius, thank you for your explanation, that's much clear now.  

As to my question about gobi pitch, I wasn't thinking about a particular sentence, I was wondering it there is a general pitch change with them, just like the raising pitch at the end of a question phrase.
But apparently, it depend of the sentence.

I have no particular example, but if I right understood, depending on the end of the sentence, the pitch of the ending ～よ, ～ね and ～か can be either low or high?

By the way, does somebody know a dictionary that gives the pitch of a word?


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## Flaminius

> I have no particular example, but if I right understood, depending on the end of the sentence, the pitch of the ending ～よ, ～ね and ～か can be either low or high?


Sorry but I cannot tell anything for sure.

The best reference for accent is 『NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典』.
I've just found this one the 'Net:
http://accent.u-biq.org/


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## Ilmen

Flaminius said:


> The best reference for accent is 『NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典』.
> I've just found this one the 'Net:
> http://accent.u-biq.org/


Great one! Thank you for the link Flaminius. Maybe should we add it to the Japanese Resources sticky thread. 

I was just wondering what pitch difference there is between 紙, 髪 and 神 (かみ). According to it, 紙 and 髪 are read "kamí", and 神 "kámi". Thus, there is not any oral difference between 紙 and 髪?


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## Flaminius

There is no phonetic difference between 紙 and 髪.


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## Ilmen

I guess only context enable to know which one is used. They are two thing that are difficult to confuse with each other. Except for 髪を切る and 紙を切る (I'll cut papers), maybe. 

確認ありがとうございます。


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