Japanese Phonetics Episode 68—now with native recordings!
Added 2019-09-06 05:01:31 +0000 UTCBibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page
Note: In the examples from 4:48 to 4:58 (きゅうじゅうきゅうグループは), I say the very beginning of the second きゅ with a pitch that is too high for 'textbook pronunciation'. If bold text indicates high pitch, then it should be きゅうじゅうきゅうグループは, and not きゅうじゅうきゅうグループは, which I said (though the graphic is correct). Here is a native recording of said example with the same graphic on screen. Note that I also say the word in a somewhat similar manner at 7:10, but here the initial pitch of the second きゅ isn't nearly as high, and I thus I believe the mistake in this instance to be essentially negligible. Thanks to Patron Joe for pointing this out!
Good afternoon patrons. The sixty-eighth episode of Japanese Phonetics has now been updated with high-quality native recordings! In this lesson we begin to look at pitch accent in counters by exploring one of the more straightforward counter groups—Western counters.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your studies!
Best from Beppu,
Dōgen
Comments
Hi Joe, yes because rises in pitch in Japanese can be gradual and occur over several mora, rather than one (the pitch of a word, or element tends to gradually rise until a dramatic downstep appears, if the element has a downstep, of course), they can be difficult to pin down to an absolute location. As you mentioned, however, I begin the second きゅ with a somewhat high pitch, which is a bit unnatural for 'textbook speech'; it should have started slightly lower, and then risen, though there may be a bit of variation in everyday speech, as you also mentioned. Great observation—I'll make a small edit in the post so everyone is aware of this. Incidentally I talk about a bit more about rises in pitch, and how they can vary depending on the following sounds, in the recent episode 6.3, which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-35798804 Cheers!
Dogen
2020-05-06 08:21:55 +0000 UTCOne of the examples you use, 99グループは is a good example of how the 'upstep' in Japanese is less distinct than the downstep. The logical application of the group suggests "/きゅ\うじゅう/きゅうグル\ープは" as the pronunciation, and that is how it is spoken in the video. However, the text appearing on the screen in the video is "/きゅ\うじゅうきゅ/うグル\ープは", i.e. with the second up-step a mora later. And this second version is how OJAD suggests it should be said. I think Japanese speakers use both, or maybe somewhere in between. The upstep doesn't seem to really matter too much, especially when it falls next to a long vowel sound.
Joe Fox
2020-05-06 08:09:23 +0000 UTC
