APPENDIX II

Accent Patterns

The Japanese accent consists of pitch patterns found in words or phrases. In the following discussion, the syllable marked with an acute accent ´ is the LAST SYLLABLE BEFORE A FALL IN PITCH. Japanese words may be divided into TONIC and ATONIC. A tonic word is one that has a basic accent, although this accent may disappear in certain contexts. An atonic word is one with no basic accent, although it may acquire an accent in certain contexts.

An accent may occur on any syllable of a word, from first to last. But within any given word, or any accent phrase, only one accent occurs. When two or more tonic words are said as one accent phrase, the first usually retains its accent, and the following words lose their accents. In Tokyo speech, accent phrases are often quite long, so that many words seem to have lost their accent when you hear them in positions other than near the beginning of a sentence.

Many 4-syllable nouns are atonic (e.g. yōfuku [yo-o-fu-ku] ‘Western-style clothes’ and tēburu [te-e-bu-ru] ‘table’). A goodly number of 3-syllable nouns are also atonic (e.g. denwa [de-n-wa] ‘telephone’ and jishin ‘earthquake’).

Most nouns of 1, 2, or 3 syllables are unpredictably atonic or tonic, with the accent on any syllable. There are a number of tonic 4-syllable nouns. For nouns of more than 4-syllables, the vast majority are not only tonic but have a THEMATIC accent—one that can be predicted. The rule for the thematic accent is: on the 3rd from the last syllable, unless this is the 2nd vowel in a vowel sequence or is a syllabic consonant—in which cases, on the 4th from the last. Following this rule, we find the following to be examples of thematic accent: hóteru ‘hotel,’ tatémono ‘building,’ óngaku ‘music,’ chōkyori-dénwa ‘long-distance telephone (call),’ Nippon-Bōeki-Kabushiki-Gáisha ‘The Japan Trade Company, Inc.’

Just as some Americans say “AUtomobile” and others say “automoBILE,” or “ICE cream” and “ice CREAM,” there are words that will have one accent pattern for some speakers of Standard Japanese and another pattern for other speakers. For ‘preacher,’ some speakers say bokushi, others say bókushi. For the masculine ‘I, me,’ older speakers say bóku, younger speakers say boku.