Japanese pitch perception differing from measured pitch and non-native perception: some questions about the research

Edit: thanks /u/kurumeramenu !

I think my main questions have more or less been answered, but I'll leave this post up anyway. Here's a snippet from the research that answers my questions:

In a delayed fundamental frequency (F0) fall or a late fall phenomenon, the F0 fall occurs on the post-accented
mora in Japanese speech. This study conducted a large-scale investigation of the occurrence conditions of the delayed F0
fall for 230 words of 48 Tokyo-dialect Japanese speakers (21 males and 27 females). The results showed that the delayed F0
fall occurred more frequently (1) in female speech than in male speech, (2) in initial-accented words than in middle-accented
words, (3) in longer words, (4) in words in which the accented mora was followed by a mora with a back vowel.

Apparently this occurs in male speech 5% of the time and female speech 38% of the time so perhaps I shouldn't worry about it


I recently read a paper called Against Marking Accent Locations in Japanese Textbooks [PDF warning] where the author brings up that measured actual fundamental frequency contours are often delayed compared to perceived pitch. She then argues that following standard written pitch notation can lead to an unnatural accent due to this, since some non-native speakers perceive pitch differently than how Japanese see and notate their own language.

I'm mildly concerned since I have been notating vocabulary with pitch occasionally in my notes.


Edit: according to further reading, the difference in perception is actually because Japanese care more about f0 drop rather than peak for judging pitch accent. This is why delays are somewhat acceptable. It also answers a question I've had for a while: why are some pitch accent teachers so anal about talking about pitch from the perspective of the drop rather than the more intuitive way of the peak. Now I can see a little bit of their point.


My main question:

Is there a pattern or rule to which words have delayed contour compared to native perceived pitch accent? This paper suggests that there is, however I cannot access it.

Secondary question: have pitch accent dictionaries been updated since the late 1900s? She seems to claim 機会 and 草 have a high accent on the first syllable but my dictionary does not show that. Unless I'm misreading her paper. Edit: still unclear on this question

Tertiary question: on the way I stumbled upon this paper claiming f0 delay is associated with expressing femininity but again can't access it. Seems interesting if anyone could summarize it but I'm not really dying to know. Edit: basically answered by the papers I now have access to

by Moon_Atomizer

4 comments
  1. >Secondary question: have pitch accent dictionaries been updated since the late 1900s? She seems to claim 機会 and 草 have a high accent on the first syllable but my dictionary does not show that. Unless I’m misreading her paper.

    I would like to know too, it seems accent dictonaries are hella out of date. 出会い is 平板 according to the NHK accent dictonary but I think 標準語 speakers say it as 中高.

  2. >Secondary question: have pitch accent dictionaries been updated since the late 1900s? She seems to claim 機会 and 草 have a high accent on the first syllable but my dictionary does not show that. Unless I’m misreading her paper. Edit: still unclear on this question

    The newest edition of the NHK accent dictionary is from 2016. But you have to keep in mind that NHK presenters sometimes say words in peculiar ways. It lists 機会 as nakadaka or alternatively atamadaka, and 草 as odaka. So that explains 機会.

    For 草, I think you’re misunderstanding what she’s saying. The sentence directly after the 草 sentence says 四季 contains a “high-pitched devoiced vowel”, which seems to imply that 草 does not contain one (because why else would she bring up that new example).

    The newest edition of the Shinmeikai accent dictionary is from 2014 but I don’t have a copy. There is also OJAD but I don’t know where their data comes from (EDIT: [It seems to be from 2010-2013](https://www.ninjal.ac.jp/research/cr-project/project/pubpro/accentdictionary/)). So yes, dictionaries are updated but if the base is NHK presenters, it won’t perfectly reflect how regular people say the words.

  3. I think you are worrying too much. Learning pitch is good for you to have a framework to work with, through immersion is when you see how words are said by natives, if it’s a little off from the pitch notation you learn – you follow how the native says it. For example ますます is 2 in the 5 Japanese dictionaries I have, but from every single recording I’ve seen it’s always said as 3. Even the NHK dictionary notates it as 2, but their recording is closer to 3. Once you get used to hearing stuff, that’s when you just throw pitch away because you no longer need it. Pitch is more like a crutch, which can sometimes be helpful to check pronunciations – especially for 尾高 cases

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