Accent
Standard Japanese has a distinctive pitch accent system: a word can have one of its moras bearing an accent or not. An accented mora is pronounced with a relatively high tone and is followed by a drop in pitch. The various Japanese dialects have different accent patterns, and some exhibit more complex tonic systems.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Phonology
Famous quotes containing the word accent:
“I lost my ridiculous accent without acquiring another”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The accent of a man’s native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“An accent mark, perhaps, instead of a whole western accent—a point of punctuation rather than a uniform twang. That is how it should be worn: as a quiet point of character reference, an apt phrase of sartorial allusion—macho, sotto voce.”
—Phil Patton (b. 1953)