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Episode 17: Pitch accent of negative na-adjective conjugations and noun phrases

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening, Patrons!

In this episode I talk about the pitch-accent patterns for the negative forms of na-adjective and noun based negative phrases.

On the surface this may seem like a very simple lesson, but a lot of time went into research as there is very little academic literature on the pitch accent of 「じゃ」, which takes the place of the particle combination 「では」. I decided to go with 「じゃ」rather than 「では」 as it is significantly more common in everyday conversation, i.e. I thought it would be much more practical. I also decided to remove the 「じゃありません」 explanation from this video as there are a few semi-complicated phrase rules I believe should be covered first. For the time being try not to be overly conscious of 「じゃありません」; in essence it follows the same rules as 「じゃない」.

Hope you guys enjoy the lesson! If you have any questions leave a comment below, and thank you all for your continued support!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen

Episode 17: Pitch accent of negative na-adjective conjugations and noun phrases

Comments

Many thanks for such a great series of lessons Dogen. I'm another audience member who is interested in the pitch rules for では and ありません as these do occur often enough to warrant understanding them. I understand you’re quite busy (congrats on the new additions to your family by the way), so I’m just adding my request to help prioritize this when you do have some time. Perhaps it would be quicker to post references to whatever relevant papers you’ve found and let us read them and report back here for other patrons. Thanks again, Dogen. Cheers!

Daryl Graf

Hi Ryan! Yes, で and は are both considered particles, but they don't follow the same accent rules I introduce in this lesson, and are actually a bit complicated, which is why I chose to go with じゃ instead. Hope that this helps!

Dogen

Thanks for the lesson! If じゃ (only 1 mora) considered as particle, is では that have 2 mora still considered as particle for both moras?

Ryan Ratjani

Thanks for the feedback—I may try to amend this lesson in the future when I have a bit more time. Cheers!

Dogen

My couple of cents here. ではありません and じゃありません are most common forms for those who just started to learn Japanese (as me). It's these forms that are introduced first in Minna-no-nihongo or similar courses. So it actually might be useful to present them here even in some simplified way.

Strange Guy

Hi Strange—it's hard to say about the exact pitch of each element of the phrase, as actual speech isn't binary (thought pitch-accent graphics typically are), but generally speaking when a single utterance has multiple downsteps then the overall pitch of the phrase will drop overtime through a phenomenon known as terracing, with each downstep causing a further drop in pitch. That said, even when no downsteps occur the pitch of a phrase will often very gradually drop over time. I talk about this in lessons 6.3, 6.4, perhaps a bit in lesson 6.5, as well as lessons 25-29. Here is a link to the index page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/16489306 Do you mind first watching these lessons to see if it answers your questions? Cheers!

Dogen

Ehmm... one question. It seems for me that in these examples you use second downstep without rising pitch preliminary (i.e. 好きじゃない - sukijanai - low-high-low-low-evenlower). Am I right? Or there is some pitch rising that I don't hear (like low-high-low-abithigher-low)? Or may be both options are correct? Sory for stupid questions, I'm not used to listening pitch accent yet...

Strange Guy

Oh hey! Didn't realize you were asking on this video directly. I will look into this! ^^

Dogen

Hey Dogen, I'm really interested in the 「じゃありません」too. Maybe if you have time (Yeah I know you don't but who knows... as a Christmas present for the patrons?) could you create a separate video? Or is it covered later in any of the videos? I briefly watched all lessons, but did not see this topic again. Maybe I just missed it. Thanks!

Adam Papai

Hi Simon. Thanks for the feedback. This is something that, as you mentioned, is a bit difficult right now as my time is extremely limited, but I'd love to implement the idea in the future once the twins are just a bit more independent ^^ Thanks for the insight!

Dogen

Hey Dogen, sorry to post so often, but I have a suggestion for an additional resource you could provide: audio files just of the examples that we can listen to on repeat (I don't think we need to listen to the explanations quite so many times!). Right now I am making these by screen-capturing the sections of video where you give the examples then converting that to an mp3 to put on my phone, obviously this is a tad laborious (and rather randomly badly edited....), I'm wondering if it wouldn't take you too long to make audio recordings specifcally designed to be listened to on repeat. Just a suggestion tho, I'm sure you are busy (twins!!) thanks for all the hard work on these, I'm really learning a lot.

tensaimon

it's my pleasure! Thank you for subscribing, appreciate your support! :D

Dogen

looking forward to the next lessons, thank you for this series! There's truly not much material in the internet, so your research and this short summary is very much appreciated!

FlamySerpent

It's my pleasure! Thank you for the support, Santiago ^^

Dogen

I really appreciate that you're doing this! It's really helped me with my pronounciation, and I'm happy to support you.

Floppy

Thank you Patrick ^^

Dogen

Very nicely presented!

Patrick R


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