Contour Tone Avoidance in Pitch Accent Systems

Abstract

This paper proposes a new typology of ‘mora-counting’ pitch accent systems by considering how contour tones are avoided(or not avoided) in Japanese. Japanese dialects greatly differ from one another in the roles of the syllable and the mora, ranging from an entirely syllable-counting system as found in Kagoshima Japanese, to an entirely mora-counting system as found in Nagasaki Japanese. Most other dialects are largely mora-based, but show different degrees of dependence on the syllable. The most crucial difference can be found in the ways they avoid or tolerate the two types of contour tones, rising and falling. The rising contour tone involves a lexical accent —or H tone equivalent to it— on the non-head mora of heavy syllables, e.g. puU.ru ‘swimming pool’. This structure is disfavored by most Japanese dialects, which falls into two sub-groups depending on whether the marked structure is remedied by accent (H tone) shift, e.g. puU.ru → PUu.ru, or by accent spreading, e.g. puU.ru → PUU.ru. On the other hand, the falling contour tone is more prevalent, avoided only in some pitch accent systems. When it is avoided, this marked structure is remedied by accent(H tone) spreading where the prominence placed on the head mora, i.e. first mora, of heavy syllables spreads to the entire syllables. The final part of the paper expands the discussion on contour tone avoidance to the loanword accent of Kyungsang Korean. Building on the moraic analysis proposed by Kubozono(forthcoming), it will be argued that the so-called syllable weight effects found in Korean loanwords from English can be reinterpreted as a case where rising contour tones are avoided in word-initial position.