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Episode 21: Rules for determining verb pitch accent (Patreon)

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2017-06-24 15:12:05
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2026-06
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Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening Patrons!

In this lesson I address several important rules for determining the pitch accent of common verbs. I originally intended on including the information in this video in the upcoming 中高 verbs episode, but the lesson became quite bloated, so I split the script in order to give each topic more time on the chalkboard.

If you have any questions or concerns leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your Japanese studies!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen

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Comments

Chase Dahl

So considering the rules you talked about in the last video and this, is there essentially no difference in pitch accent in between a potential verb form and intransitive form of certain verbs? For example, for 立つ --> 立てる, 焼く--> 焼ける, 開く --> 開ける, 欠く--> 欠ける, etc. the pitch accent shouldn't change, right? Is that right? Are there any exceptions to this? Context is usually pretty obvious, but that is interesting.

Dogen
>>10545144

Hi Chase! You could use that as a general guideline for certain verbs, but I'd advise a certain amount of caution. Here's what I mean: You said, 'Is there essentially no difference the potential form and the intransitive form of certain verbs?' and listed four verbs. 立つ、焼く、開く、and 欠く. However, among these verbs, two are transitive (焼く and 欠く), while two are intransitive (立つ and 開く). The foundation of your question seemed to be based on the idea that all of these verbs are transitive, and that their intransitive forms and potential forms were thus the same, but this isn't true. The transitive form of '立つ' is '立てる', which means the transitive form matches the potential form, rather than the intransitive form matching the potential form. On the other hand, the transitive form of '焼ける' is '焼く', meaning that the intransitive form does match the potential form. So again, I'd be careful! Please let me know if this wasn't clear!

Walt Poor

I hadn't noticed it before, but this lesson has "closed captions" which attempt to show what you sad. In case you haven't seen them, the closed-caption versions of the Japanese words is often hilarious!

Markas

Dogen! For the ''い'' Rule, does 感じる include in the exceptions too? Because verbs like 感じる、浴びる are Heiban right? Looking forward to your reply! ^^

Dogen
>>38788352

Hi Markas! Actually 感じる is a four mora verb, か　ん　じ　る, so the rule doesn't apply here. Cheers!

Strange Guy

I would say that itransitive/transitive pairs rule is a part of larger rule: verbs with the same stem have the same pitch accent. E.g. 起きる, 起こす, 起こる; 聞く, 聞かす, 聞こえる; 見る,見える,見せるetc. Though this leads to a problem of defining a stem. Like, 着る and 着せる have the same stem 'ki-' and thus they have the same pitch accent. However, should we consider 着こなす as having the same stem? Because if we do, than it becomes an exception (since first two verbs are heiban, and the last one is nakadaka). Another example: 下す, 下る and 下さる. While first two are heiban, the last one is nakadaka. I'm sure that there are some other exceptions that I'm not familiar with, but I believe there are not so many of them... though I may be wrong.

Dogen
>>45368976

Hi Strange Guy. Yes, I have come across information that says its not just about transitive and intransitive, and more about the stem, but I also ran into similar problems, and thus decided to stick with the simple transitive intransitive rule, as there seem to be little if any exceptions, and I never came across any resources that explained why there are some exceptions when the stem is the same. Incidentally one of the resources that I use does set it up as more of a transitive / intransitive rule, as opposed to a 'same stem' rule, if my memory is serving me correctly. Hope this helps!

RRainbow

I have a question regarding there being no odaka verbs. The dictionary I use,大辞林, seems to show a few verbs as having odaka pronunciations (the only verb I can remember off the top of my head is 付く, which it lists as 1 and 2, atamadaka and odaka). Maybe I'm misunderstanding something? I'd appreciate your opinion!

Dogen
>>56362956

Hi Jasper! Great question. In a verb like つく the つ is devoiced, which leads some speakers to shift the downstep onto the く, as technically speaking devoiced sounds can't carry pitch. That said, just because it doesn't carry pitch doesn't mean that it isn't said with a downstep, as I talk about in lesson 6.4, which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-35798804 Thus, technically speaking there are no 'normally 尾高' verbs in Japanese, but there are a some verbs that can be pronounced with the 尾高 pattern due to devoicing. I don't know how to properly teach the 尾高 pronunciations of these verbs, however, so I would encourage you to pronounce them with their standard (non-尾高) pitch-accent patterns, even if devoicing is occurring. I think that by watching lesson 6.4 you'll know what I mean by this—do you mind watching the lesson to see if it connects the dots for you? Thank you!

Giant Gough

レッスンに関係ないんですが、ビデオの音楽ってどこかに全部聴こえる？BOSSFIGHTが道元さんのために作ったんですか？サンプルしてるだけですか？

Alexander Best

Hello Dogen. Just a quick question. I'm guessing if you were to it would be in a much later lesson, but will you be addressing the pitch accent of numbers and counters? Numbers 1 - 10 shouldn't be a problem to find in any Japanese to Japanese dictionary but maybe past that there may be a lack of resources concerning it. What's your thoughts on this?

Ilan Gonzalez Carigi
>>5844579

Yes, that would be helpful, also for counters as 階、つ、人, etc. As i have seen that they change pitch depending if alone or certain numbers

Dogen
>>5821418

Hi Joel ^^ All of the music is from Bossfight's excellent 'Caps On, Hats Off' album, which can be found on iTunes. サンプルしていますが、Bossfightから許可をもらっています！＾＾

Alexandre Smirnov

Hi Dogen, thanks for the awesome lesson! Just wanted to clarify - at 4:40 and 5:07, you say it's safe to assume that everyday regular verbs with "i" in the second mora are heiban, though I interpreted your explanation to mean that those heiban verbs were the exception, and that the rule is that they're nakadaka. Did I misunderstand something? Thank you!

Dogen
>>5893970

Alexandre thanks so much for catching this! This is a mistake on my part—it should be: 'assume that everyday regular verbs with "i" in the second mora are nakadaka.' I most likely said heiban as it was in my mind from the 3 heiban examples. Terribly sorry for this! I've updated the video already within the post—do you mind watching it again? Thanks again for the check! I will address this in a post as well!

Alexander Best

Hey Dogen. I've been using flash cards to remember the practical examples without given so far during this course. Would you recommend the continuation of this method or should I not bother?

Dogen
>>5897812

It's a great idea! I wouldn't recommend it as your only form of practice however. As long as you're doing it with shadowing / recording yourself as well then you should be good :)

Kamu Key

By far, the most useful (and shocking) lesson on this amazing course. Can't believe in this five years of studying I kind of got the trick by just repeating but didn't quite understand the accent changes

Maxwell

Hi Dogen, I'm really enjoying this course and am getting a lot of value from it. Something I've noticed that I wanted to run by you. It seems to my ears, when listening to the examples of the native speaker, that the starting pitch of Heiban words is slightly lower than that of that of Nakadaka words. This would make sense in that Nakadaka words starting slightly higher, followed by the rise, sets up a more dramatic drop in pitch; whereas the Heiban starts lower and only rises slightly, giving the "flat" sound. If this perception is correct, it could really help in differentiating Heiban and Nakadaka words. Hope this makes sense!

Filip Kostka

Hello, I have a question about pitch accent of nouns that are formed (or seem like they are formed) as a -masu stem of verbs, such as 始まる->始まり, 始める-> 始め, 合う->合い, 出会う->出会い, 探す-> 探し, 蹴る->蹴り, 突く-> 突き, 釣る->釣り, etc. Is there a practical rule to follow here? Thank you!

Dogen
>>9695541

Hi Filip, There is a rule, but I'm currently doing a bit of research into it across multiple resources (I plan on making a video about this in the advanced pitch-accent sub-series). If you'd like to learn more immediately, then the NHK Accent Dictionary is a great place to start! Apologies for not being able to provide a clear answer immediately on this one. Cheers!

Dogen
>>95014338

Hi, Maxwell. This could be the case, but I can’t comment on this in any detail as it’s something I’ve never seen in academic literature, and comparing a handful files from one speaker isn’t enough to give any kind of definitive answer. You would need an analysis of hundreds of words and multiple speakers in order to formulate any kind of theory. It can be tempting to develop theories based on things you’re hearing in your studies, but unless you’ve really done the proper research to support your theories this can actually hurt you if theory is flawed and you base more of your studies on an incorrect theory. So again—what you’re hearing could be the case, but I can’t validate it and I can’t give advice without being able to confirm the information. I hope you can understand.