A phenomenon I’ve observed is that Japanese people tend to sometimes insert an extreme rise in pitch for the last mora of a phrase even when it does not make any sense from a pitch-accent point of view. It feels to me like it’s supposed to signify that the current sentence is not finished yet but it does not seem to happen consistently.
Providing an example for this is not really necessary because I’m sure everybody has heard it, but just in case: listen to this after 4:44 https://youtu.be/_Mi1W3cSzpI?t=284 and pay attention to the rises at the end of パフォーマーは and 止めて respectively.
Does this phenomenon have a name?
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This phenomenon is called 半疑問形[はんぎもんけい] (“semi-interrogative form”) in Japanese, and uptalk or upspeak in English — more formally, “high rising terminal” (HRT) or “high rising intonation” (HRI) in academic literature. Similar intonation patterns can be found in other languages too; I became familiar with it first from certain dialects of Spanish.
[This paper by Kaori Ueki](https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/bee75e57-821a-4338-9584-7ccd81e6deb9) is probably a good starting point for the types of places where HRT occurs in Japanese.
edit: formatting
I think of it more as stress than pitch, as it’s a way to add rhythm to a sentence, breaking it down into small sections so it’s not just a long stream. It’s used a lot for particles and grammatical endings like て-form, ば-form, ~たり etc. I find it’s quite evident when people are reading in unison, especially children reading something aloud at school. It helps them all keep the same rhythm.
I’ve always wondered what this equates to in English. Do we even have anything to compare it to?