79933
The word 超自然的 seems to have a somewhat mysterious pitch accent.

In [WaniKani's
audio](https://www.wanikani.com/vocabulary/%E8%B6%85%E8%87%AA%E7%84%B6%E7%9A%84)
(click the speaker icons) as well as in [this random YouTube
video](https://youtu.be/mOA7PvNfNtk?t=19) it sounds like the accent is
ちょうしぜんてき{HHLLHHHH}. Also [Forvo for
超自然](https://forvo.com/word/%E8%B6%85%E8%87%AA%E7%84%B6/) sounds like
ちょうしぜん{HHLLHH}. As far as I know, this pitch accent shape is unusual for 標準語.

My thinking is that, as far as accent is concerned, the word is split into 超
and 自然的, which are then pronounced atamadaka and heiban respectively: ちょう{HHL}
+ しぜんてき{LHHHH}. Is that a reasonable analysis? Does this sort of thing occur
more often than I think it does?

Would I be wrong to read it with a heiban accent like ちょうしぜん{LLHHHH}(てき{HH})?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-02T20:09:56.890
79927
2020-11-30T16:03:43.537
16052
question
pitch-accent
Pitch accent of 超自然的
Yes, your analysis is correct. In fact the し can drop even lower than the う
before it if you choose to really enunciate it. This sort of splitting is
fairly common, for example with the prefix 非 or the prefix 被.

I consider it wrong to read that word in heiban, it'd sound like 調子・全的(??) or
something like that.

However, there are sometimes cases where words get reanalyzed, like

> 無期懲役（むきちょ↓うえき） → 無期懲役（む↓き・ちょうえき）

or

> 故事成語（こ↓じ・せいご）→ 故事成語（こじせ↓いご）

This tends to happen as the compound becomes more common and non-experts come
to say it more IMO. I don't think there is any chance of this happening with
超自然的 because it isn't a single concept, though, 的 is a suffix.

There are also other cases like 興味本位（きょうみほ↓んい） where it's _not_ valid to
pronounced split (×きょ↓うみ・ほ↓んい), because 本位 is not a valid concept on its own,
it only serves as a suffix so it makes no sense to have it split.

大辞林 tends to list such split pronunciations as number-number, like 切磋琢磨:

> せっさたくま ［1］━［1］ 【切磋▼琢▼磨】

Which indicates it's a two-part word which drops after the first mora of each
part. However, it doesn't indicate where the break is so you sort of need to
know that yourself.

In addition, in the case the second part of the word is heiban, it seems to
omit the -[0] (like with 春夏秋冬), which is not good IMO because [1]-[0] does
permit a slightly different pronunciation from just [1].

For these reasons I recommend using the NHK accent dictionary, which does show
where things split and their respective downstep locations. Of course the word
you ask about isn't a dictionary word so it wouldn't be helpful there.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-02T23:58:24.757
79933
2020-11-30T16:03:43.537
2020-11-30T16:03:43.537
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answer