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Japanese Phonetics #74: Multi-mora particles (Patreon)

Published:
2019-12-27 01:54:08
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening, Patrons! The seventy-fourth episode of Japanese Phonetics is now updated to include high-quality native recordings. In this lesson, we begin to explore pitch accent in long (multi-mora) particles.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support and good luck with your Japanese studies!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen

Files

Previews only

Japanese Phonetics #74 Introduction to pitch accent in long particles

The seventy-forth episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this lesson, we begin to explore pitch-accent in multi-mora particles. If you have any questions leave a comment below, and thank you all for your continued support! Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Some_guy

Hi Dogen, So, you mentioned that these particles deal with nouns fairly exclusively here. Besides 19.1, is there an area where you cover how the rest of these particles attach to the verbs?

Dogen
>>101266799

Hi Hardy! There is not. After looking into said topic a bit more I decided to scrap the lesson I had planned for it, as I was unable to come up with any sort of practical guidelines; this is unfortunately a very complicated topic, and again because of that it's very hard (at least for me) to try and break things down in any sort of practical manner. This is one where I've personally decided to simply try and develop my phonetic awareness as much as possible, and let the pieces fall as they may. Apologies for not being able to help more with this!

Mars Volta

Hi Dogen, I just started to learn pitch accent and still cannot disginguish them by ear well enough. So I have a question about japanese songs. Are they (japanese singers) always follow pitch accent when they are singing? Or they can change pitch accent just to follow melody? Is it safe to listen japanese songs and remember pronunciation of words from them?

Kin

Hi Dogen, thanks for your work! I was wondering if there were any good supplementary books/media to use to help me learn pitch accent. Also, do you have a timeline on when you plan to finish this series?

Dogen
>>30849845

Hi Kin! If you can read advanced Japanese then the most clear and straightforward resource is the NHK Accent Dictionary. If you'd rather do research in English then Labrune's "The Phonology of Japanese" and Vance's "The Sounds of Japanese" are both quite good. Note that I use both of these books, as well as dozens of other resources, while creating this series. Here is a link of all of the sources I use: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632 Cheers!

Julian Bentham

Hi Dogen, what would you recommend for instances where these particles are used on their own? では usually seems to be 頭高 at the start of sentences, but what about something like だけ？ For example, if someone mentioned a number that you believed to be low, and you responded with 「だけ？」。 Ignoring the inflexion for the question, I feel like it would be low-high, but I'm not sure.

Dogen
>>39506215

Hi Julian, I think in those circumstances native speakers would probably say それだけ？ instead of just だけ？ but if it was just だけ I believe it would be low to high. Does this answer your question?

William Scott

Hi, Dogen! I subscribed recently, and I'm very appreciative of everything you've done. This is a great resource! I have a question for you. I've been doing an activity where I mark the pitch as I listen to an N5 sample test audio file and then use OJAD to check if I've marked everything correctly on a transcript. While doing the activity today, I came across something unusual. At one point in the audio file, a man says 今から, and though OJAD says 今 is 頭高, it seems to be pronounced as though it is 尾高. Because I still suck at hearing pitch accent correctly, I thought I would verify, so I downloaded Audacity and did some frequency analysis. It does, in fact, seem that there is actually a small rise in pitch from い to ま, followed by a drop to から. The offending material may be found at the 5:54 mark of the audio in the following link: https://www.jlpt.jp/samples/sample2012/mp3/N5Q1.mp3 Do you know why this might be happening? Thanks again for everything!

Dogen
>>39799191

Hi William. Yes, it is my understanding that '今から' is typically said with the 頭高 pronunciation. I had a listen to this recording, and also download the file and played with it in PRAAT, but for some reason I wasn't able to get consistent results—the program seemed to be bugging and I can't tell why. That said, 今から is typically said with the 頭高 pattern, but if a speaker is trying to emphasize something in a particular way then some small 'non-textbook' changes in pitch can occur; this may be an example of said phenomenon. I may make a small amendment to one of my earlier lessons to include note this phenomenon. Cheers!

Clare Kappenman

Thanks for all your work! I have a question that I think is related. I know ください isn't a particle, but I don't remember seeing anything about ～てください form earlier in the series--apologies if you've addressed this already somewhere!! In some of the textbook audio I've listened to, and in Suzuki-kun, there seems to be a clear distinction between ください when it attaches onto a 平板 te-form verb vs. a low-ending one. Like, aKETE-KUDASAi vs. SHImete-kudasai. But when I listen to native-speed, non-textbook-type recordings, and textbooks with faster, less textbooky audio, it really sounds like ください attaches low in every case. aKETE-kudasai, iTTE-kudasai, kaSHITE-kudasai, etc. Do I need more practice at distinguishing pitches at native/near-native speed and character, or am I hearing accurately and ください tends to be flat or almost-flat most of the time, regardless of whatever official rule there may be?

Dogen
>>43930464

Hi Clare! I don’t believe that I’ve covered ください before, but from what I understand (currently out and about so I can’t double check this with any resources), ください follows what you’ve described in the first half of your post, even in everyday conversations. That said, when taking into account that ください is often the last word of a phrase and that pitch tends to gradually drop over the course of a statement, it could be harder to hear ‘the rules’ in quicker, everyday speech; in other words the rules might get sort of drowned out in some circumstances by the sort of ‘default’ gradual drop in pitch, as well as intonation. Does that make sense? Hopefully this helps a little!

Richy Hayes

Just as a heads up, the episode description says "combime with nouns." on the index page! In addition to that, I had a question about books. I own the 日本語アクセント入門, and have had the NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典 in my amazon cart for a while. I was wondering what this difference between these two books is (aside from the latter being much pricier)? Thanks very much!

Dogen
>>47351991

Hi Richy. The NHK book has listings for essentially every word in Japanese, and also many easy to use charts for counters and conjugations, whereas the 入門 book is more of just a volume that breaks down the fundamental aspects of Japanese pitch-accent, without a lot of tables. 入門 is typically easier to understand, but not nearly as in-depth. I would buy the NHK book as well if it's been on your mind, it's really a good book!

Kolibaba

Hello Dogen, I have a question about the phrase 行かないから. As 行かない is 平板 and から unaccented I would assume that the phrase 行かないから is also 平板. But I hear it often pronounced with a downstep on the な of 行かない and also OJAD says so. Do you know what the reason for that is? Thank you very much!

Dogen
>>66140361

Hi, Kolibaba! iKANAi (with the downstep on the NA) is an also acceptable pronunciation, which seems to be more common in less formal speech. This is true for all heiban verbs—the nai form can exhibit a downstep on the na. I hope this helps!