Pitch accent

Pitch accent is a way some spoken languages make one syllable in a word stand out by giving it a special pitch pattern. A small rise or fall in pitch on that one syllable can change the word’s meaning, or simply make it sound “right” to native speakers.[1]

This is different from a stress accent, which English uses. In English the important syllable is mainly louder and longer, not higher or lower.[2]

Languages that use pitch accent include Japanese, Swedish, and Serbo-Croatian.[2]

How it works

In a pitch-accent language, only one syllable (or mora) of a word gets the special pitch. The other syllables follow a regular pattern. Moving the accent to a different place can turn the word into another word.[2]

Examples

In Japanese

Japanese shows clear pitch accent. The same sounds can mean different things depending on the accent position.[3]

  • hashi (はし) – HIGH-low → “chopsticks”
  • hashi (はし) – low-HIGH → “bridge”
  • hashi that stays high – low-HIGH-HIGH → “edge”[3]

In Swedish

Swedish has two pitch-accent “melodies,” called Accent 1 and Accent 2. Some words are spelled the same but change meaning with a different melody.[4]

  • anden with Accent 1 → “the duck”
  • anden with Accent 2 → “the spirit”[4]

In Serbo-Croatian

Standard Serbo-Croatian has four pitch accents (two rising and two falling).[5]

Pitch accent vs. Tone

Pitch accent is different from a full tone language such as Mandarin Chinese.

  • In a tone language, every syllable has its own tone pattern.
  • In a pitch-accent language, only one syllable in the word gets a special accent; the others are predictable.[6]

So pitch accent can be seen as a simpler system than tone.[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Pitch accent". Glossary of Linguistic Terms. SIL International. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 van der Hulst, Harry (2010). "Pitch Accent Systems" (PDF). Pitch Accent Systems. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Accent – Japanese Pronunciation Module". TUFS Language Modules. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Roll, Mikael (2022). "The predictive function of Swedish word accents". Frontiers in Psychology. 13. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.910787. PMC 9366883. PMID 35967682.
  5. ↑ Lehiste, Ilse; Ivić, Pavle (1986). Word and Sentence Prosody in Serbo-Croatian. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-12111-8.
  6. ↑ "Lexical Tone". Glossary of Linguistic Terms. SIL International. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.