A typical definition is as follows: "Pitch-accent systems systems in which one syllable is more prominent than the other syllables in the same word, a prominence that is achieved by means of pitch" (Zanten and Dol (2010)). Scholars give various definitions of a pitch-accent language. 1 Characteristics of pitch-accent languagesĬharacteristics of pitch-accent languages Definitions.The term "pitch accent" is also used to denote a different feature, namely the use of pitch when speaking to give selective prominence (accent) to a syllable or mora within a phrase. Some of the languages considered pitch-accent languages, in addition to accented words, also have accentless words (e.g., Japanese and Western Basque) in others all major words are accented (e.g., Blackfoot and Barasana). In this latter kind, the accented syllable is also often stressed another way. Pitch-accent languages tend to fall into two categories: those with a single pitch-contour (for example, high, or high–low) on the accented syllable, such as Tokyo Japanese, Western Basque, or Persian and those in which more than one pitch-contour can occur on the accented syllable, such as Punjabi, Swedish, or Serbo-Croatian. Languages that have been described as pitch-accent languages include: most dialects of Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Baltic languages, Ancient Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, Tlingit, Turkish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish (but not in Finland), Western Basque, Yaqui, certain dialects of Korean, Shanghainese, and Livonian.
Some have claimed that the term "pitch accent" is not coherently defined and that pitch-accent languages are just a sub-category of tonal languages in general. Pitch-accent also contrasts with fully tonal languages like Vietnamese and Standard Chinese, in which each syllable can have an independent tone.
For the distinction between, / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.Ī pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness (or length), as in many languages, like English. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
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