Page 547 - Basic Japanese

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