An example would be the Japanese surname Yukawa. So it would be pronounced "yoo-kah-wah".Where the "yoo" gets emphasized. Not a linguist so I don't know the correct terminology to describe the sound but would be same sort of intonation as the Italian word "Piccolo" but with a different accent. But is syllable stress the same as syllable emphasis?
2
-
1The short answer is no. Japanese has pitch accent and it is morae that have stress, not syllables. In a Japanese word some morae are pronounced with a low tone and the others with a high tone. There are 4 accent patterns in Japanese, the most typical ones are when the 1st mora is low and the rest are high, or the 1st mora is high and the rest are low. In the surname 湯川 Yukawa the 1st mora yu is high, the rest are low. But it is so just in this word, other words can have other stress patterns.– Yellow SkyCommented Jan 28 at 3:45
-
Here the Japanese pitch accent is explained in detail, with audio illustrations: The Kanshudo definitive guide to Japanese pitch accents.– Yellow SkyCommented Jan 28 at 5:15
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
Japanese has pitch accent, which is something different than stress in English.
Japanese words are analyzed as composed of morae. Mora is something different than syllable.
Pitch accent in Japanese words does NOT need to be on first mora.
Quoting from Wikipedia:
In standard Japanese, pitch accent has the following effect on words spoken in isolation:
If the accent is on the first mora, then the pitch starts high, drops suddenly on the second mora, then levels out. The pitch may fall across both morae, or mostly on one or the other (depending on the sequence of sounds)—that is, the first mora may end with a high falling pitch, or the second may begin with a (low) falling pitch, but the first mora will be considered accented regardless. The Japanese describe this as 頭高 atamadaka (literally, "head-high").
If the accent is on a mora other than the first or the last, then the pitch has an initial rise from a low starting point, reaches a near-maximum at the accented mora, then drops suddenly on any following morae. This accent is referred to as 中高 nakadaka ("middle-high").
If the word has an accent on the last mora, the pitch rises from a low start up to a high pitch on the last mora. Words with this accent are indistinguishable from accentless words unless followed by a particle such as が ga or に ni, on which the pitch drops. In Japanese this accent is called 尾高 odaka ("tail-high").
If the word does not have an accent, the pitch rises from a low starting point on the first mora or two, and then levels out in the middle of the speaker's range, without ever reaching the high tone of an accented mora. In Japanese this accent is named "flat" (平板 heiban).
Note that accent rules apply to phonological words, which include any following particles. So the sequence "hashi" spoken in isolation can be accented in two ways, either háshi (accent on the first syllable, meaning 'chopsticks') or hashí (flat or accent on the second syllable, meaning either 'edge' or 'bridge'), while "hashi" plus the subject-marker "ga" can be accented on the first syllable or the second, or be flat/accentless: háshiga 'chopsticks', hashíga 'bridge', or hashiga 'edge'.
