93158
From ear, despite what the conventional literature tells me, I often hear that
the accented mora has a higher amplitude, not just coming before the downstep.
This is particularly obvious in [This _Youtube_
fragment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dydnKjXjDk), where the recording
equipment's low quality causes the audio to crackle on the **ga** -mora.
Searching for it myself, I could only find
[this](http://hasegawa.berkeley.edu/Accent/accent.html), referencing one study
that finds it.

> [...] and that since, in his data, the amplitude peak fell on the accented
> syllable in the words in which the F0 fall was delayed [...]

Obviously this is an argumentative piece, and I cannot find the actual named
research anywhere though many others that also reference it, and I cannot find
anything else that corroborates it and searching for anything just seems to
draw a comparison to English where accent is indicated by amplitude — so does
anyone else have anything that corroborates or disputes the notion that in
Japanese, accented moræ tend to have a higher amplitude?
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2020-05-03T20:21:09.373
77033
2022-01-26T22:00:35.563
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question
phonology pitch-accent
Higher amplitude in accented mora?
I think confusion in this area often stems from misunderstanding what
**lexical accent** is. "Stress accent" (in the case of English) and "pitch
accent" (in the case of Japanese) are both types of lexical accent, a.k.a.
accent on words.

Lexical accents are, _primarily_ , used not to convey emotion, but rather to
distinguish words. Each lexeme (word) has its own accent that is effectively
stored with the word in your head.

When words are phonetically realized, they need to change somehow to reflect
the lexical accent. In Japanese, pitch is used -- it is unusual for the
amplitude to change just to reflect the accent. In other words:

**In neutral renditions of an accent phrase, the accented mora only increases
in pitch, not in amplitude.**

_**However, not all utterances in normal speech are neutral.**_

Just because Japanese doesn't have stress _accent_ (i.e., a lexical stress),
that doesn't mean it doesn't have emphasis at all. You can emphasize words in
Japanese, and that can cause changes in amplitude as well as exaggerate the
lows and highs in existing pitch.

# How emphasis affects amplitude and pitch

As for how emphasis will specifically affect the amplitude of each mora in the
accent phrase, it varies. Here are some examples.

  1. Sometimes the _first mora_ gets said louder (and/or with more tension and/or with more built-up pressure):

> **こ** りゃ・たまったも＼んじゃな＼いわ

(I'm bolding the emphasized mora, not the accented mora. The accented mora are
followed by ＼. So, the こ is low in pitch but is said loud, or with built-up
pressure, like っこ.)

  2. For this sentence, the beginning of the middle accent phrase could also be emphasized (which would in fact **lower** its pitch, and increase its amplitude):

> こりゃ・ **た** まったも＼んじゃな＼いわ

  3. And sometimes the _accented mora_ gets said louder:

> こりゃ・たまった **も** ＼んじゃな＼いわ

(The emphasis happens to align with the accented mora here, so the pitch of も
is high, probably higher than usual, and it is said louder.)

P.S., for this sentence I think the first rendition is actually most likely.

  4. You can also hear particles at the _end_ of an accent phrase get higher pitch and higher amplitude, even when there is a proceeding accent kernel in the phrase:

> A. 彼をですか？  
>  B. いや、彼 **も** ですよ

This emphasis of も on the accent phrase of か＼れも would result in も being said
louder, as well as the pitch going higher (for purposes of intonation, not
pitch accent), resulting in an ending pitch of approximately かれもですよ{HLHLLL}.

# So is amplitude completely flat in neutral utterances?

All that said, humans aren't robots, and there is no _fully_ neutral utterance
except in extremely controlled environments. In general you should expect a
tiny bit of fluctation in amplitude around the accent kernel simply because
you need to tense your vocal chords to generate higher pitch and you may end
up increasing amplitude as a result. But the increased amplitude doesn't sound
like the accent, it sounds like emphasis, especially if it's large enough. For
example, in your linked audio clip, it does sound like the speaker is slightly
emphasizing the word compared to a completely neutral rendition.

The important thing to understand is that if you increase the amplitude for
every single accent kernel in a sentence, it will sound utterly bizarre,
because that's not how pitch accent works -- almost as if you are trying to
emphasize tons of random words. This is a common mistake of stress-accent-L1
learners when they study pitch accent and it sticks out considerably.
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answer