Prosodic Features of Japanese and English

研究ノート

Prosodic Features of Japanese and English

Marie KJELDGAARD

要

旨

日本語と英語のプロソディーの概要を紹介する。言語学におけるプロソ
ディーとは，発話において現れるリズム，音量，スピード，イントネー
ション等をいう。「ToBI」という音訳システムを用いて，英語と日本語のプロソディーの共通点と相違点を示す。
Keywords: English (英語), intonation (イントネーション), Japanese (日本語),
language differences (言語の違い), linguistics (言語学), prosody (プロソディー)

Abstract
This paper contains an overview of the prosody of Japaneseversus that of English. Prosody refers to the rhythm, volume, tempo,
and intonation of connected speech. This article also gives an
overview of the ToBI transcription system for recording prosodic
features. Aspects of both English and Japanese prosody aredescribed, with the goal of pointing out both similarities anddifferences between the two languages.

165

愛知大学

言語と文化

No. 34Introduction
What are prosodic features? According to Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin(1996), prosodic features include rhythm, volume, tempo, and intonation in connectedspeech. Rhythm comes from the use of stressed (or accented) and unstressed sounds,
such as the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in many Germanic andRomance languages. Volume refers to prominence (loud or soft), and tempo could be
described as the length of a sound (long or short). Intonation corresponds to pitch (highor low).
These linguistic features can correspond roughly to physical, measurable quantities
such as intensity in decibels, duration, and fundamental frequency (F0), or pitch in Hertz;
however, these features are not always present or do not always match exactly, especiallyin cases of tonal languages such as Chinese (Hirst & Di Cristo, 1998). There is also someambiguity in the literature in the use of the terms intonation and prosody. Intonation isoften used in a broad sense, meant to include the other aspects of prosody; other times it
is used more narrowly, to refer only to intonation proper (Hirst & Di Cristo).
Prosody is often not taught explicitly or effectively in the language classroom (Allen,
1971; Levis, 1999), but it is an important part of language production. In fact, according
to Celce-Murcia et al. (1996), misunderstandings resulting from improper intonation use
can be more difficult to repair than those resulting from segmental pronunciation errors.
Even if a speaker uses clear and correct grammar, a mistake in intonation can change themeaning or affective content of an utterance. Prosodic features are such a fundamental
part of language that studies have shown babies can recognize the intonation of theirlanguage as early as two months of age, before they acquire lexical items (e.g., Fernald
1989; Jusczyk, Cutler, & Redanz, 1993).
Considering these points, it seems important for language teachers to have an
understanding of the prosodic features of the language they are teaching; knowledge ofthe student’s L1 prosody would also be helpful, allowing the teacher to identify potential
areas of difficulty. This paper provides a brief overview of some of the similarities anddifferences of prosodic features in English and Japanese.

166

Prosodic Features of Japanese and English

A Note on Transcription
Because prosodic features consist almost entirely of auditory information, there
have been some difficulties in deciding how they should be represented on paper. Hirst
and Di Cristo (1998) explained several different methods of intonation transcription,used in different chapters of their book. Beckman and Pierrehumbert (1986), in theirinfluential description of Japanese and English intonation, used a relatively simple system
which marked high and low tones, accents, and breaks in speech. They later worked withseveral other authors to develop that system into a more widely useable form, resulting in
the Tones and Break Indices (ToBI) intonation notation system (Silverman et al., 1992).
This system is particularly useful because it is adaptable to other languages: A version
specifically used to describe Japanese intonation, called J_ToBI, has been developed(Venditti, 2005). Therefore, the ToBI and J_ToBI notation styles are referenced in thispaper.

Intonation in Japanese and English
Accents and Tones
In prosody, accents are abrupt pitch changes which occur on the stressed syllable ofa word. (Bolinger, 1998, p.47). Tones refer to changes in pitch that carry lexical meaning.
Languages are often classified according to their use of accents, tones, or both. In tonal
languages—for example, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai—pitch is used to distinguishbetween multiple lexical items. This means that two words with the same pronunciation
will convey different meanings depending on the pitch or tone. Accent is usually notfound in tonal languages.
Stress languages (sometimes called stress-accent or intonation languages) do not
use pitch to distinguish between two different words. Instead, pitch is used to convey
intonational information. Most Germanic and Romance languages, including English,
fall into this category.
There are also languages, like Japanese, that fall somewhere in the middle; they arecalled pitch-accent or tonal accent languages. Tone can convey lexical meaning; however,
it is not always used in this way. In some words, tone is anchored to one accented or
stressed syllable in a word, and the other syllable or syllables are unaccented. In all other

167

愛知大学

言語と文化

No. 34words, the entire word is unaccented (Hayes, 2009).
Hirst and Di Cristo (1998), however, warn against considering these three categories
as absolute. They suggest that, rather than being distinct, they could be seen as points
on a scale, with individual languages falling somewhere along that scale. Table 1 shows
ways that accent and pitch are used in three different languages.
Table 1Stress and Tone in Chinese, Japanese, and English

Language

Type

Uses accent?

Uses tone for:

ExampleChinesetone

nolexical meaningmā (high tone) means “mother”mǎ (falling-rising tone) means“horse”

Japanesepitchaccent

some words

lexical meaning
in some words

káki (accent on first syllable, dropin pitch on second syllable) means“oyster”
kaki (no accent, rise in pitchon the second syllable) means“persimmon”

Englishstressyesintonational
meaningRed. (falling intonation) is astatement of fact
Red? (rising intonation) is aquestion or expression of surprise

Note. Partially adapted from Abe (1998).

Pitch-Accents
Pitch accents occur in English as well as in Japanese. A pitch accent refers to a highor low tone that is associated with a stressed syllable. In their initial research on Japaneseand English intonation, Beckman and Pierrehumbert (1986) identified six different
kinds of pitch accents in English. Upon development of the ToBI transcription method,the original six were reduced to five (Pitrelli, Beckman, & Hirschberg, 1994). They
identified just one in Japanese. Table 2 shows a list of possible pitch accents in English
and in Japanese.
In English, pitch accents provide intonational meaning. Different pitch-accents canbe used with the same words. In Japanese, the pitch accent has no inherent intonational
meaning. It is associated only with specific words (Venditti, 2005). Pitch accents inJapanese are realized with a single intonation pattern; all pitch-accents in Japanese follow
this same H to L tone pattern. It is important to note, however, that Japanese does have168

Prosodic Features of Japanese and English

many of the same intonational contours as English. In English, they are associated with apitch accent; in Japanese, they are not.
Another important difference is the frequency of occurrence. In English, every
phrase is built around a pitch accent, which marks the key point of the phrase. In
Japanese, pitch accents only occur in specific words. It is possible to have a phrase
without any accents at all (Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986).
Table 2 Pitch Accents in English and JapaneseEnglishType

Intonation Pattern

Example of UsageH*

simple highcanonical declarativeL*

simple low

yes-no question

L + H*

rising to high from low

contrastive focus

L* + H“scooped”

pragmatic uncertainty

H + !H*

fall onto stresspragmatic inference

Type

Intonation Pattern

Example of Usage

H* + L

sharp fallindicates lexical meaning

Japanese

Note. Adapted from Pitrelli, 1994 and Venditti, 2005. Asterisks indicate association with a stressedor accented syllable.

Rhythm and Stress
Japanese and English also differ in their rhythm, or timing. English is a stress-timed
language, in which the length of an utterance depends more on the number of stresses,
rather than the number of syllables. Figure 1 gives an example of this.
The CATS

CHASE

MICE.

(4 syllables)

The CATS will

CHASE theMICE.

(6 syllables)

The CATS have been

CHAS-ing theMICE.

(8 syllables)

Figure 1. Example of stress-timed language. Adapted from Celce-Murcia et al., 1996.

Although each sentence contains a different number of syllables, all three sentences
contain the same number of stresses (on cats, chase, and mice, indicated by capitalletters). Therefore, they should all take roughly the same amount of time to say, eventhough the third sentence has twice as many syllables as the first.

169

愛知大学

言語と文化

No. 34

Japanese, on the other hand, is a syllable-timed—or, technically, a mora-timed—language. A mora is a subsyllabic unit; it is “a postvocalic segment within a syllable, suchas a coda consonant or the second element of a dipthong, [which] functions independently
as a rhythmic unit” (Kureta, Fushimi, & Tatsumi, 2006, p. 1102). Syllables in Japanesecontain either one or two morae; for example, the word Nippon (“Japan”) contains four
morae (ni-p-po-n) but just two syllables (nip-pon).
In English, strong syllables—usually those containing new or important
information—are stressed; weak syllables do not receive stress. In Japanese each mora
receives roughly equal weight. Therefore, the length of a phrase in Japanese will increasein proportion to the number of morae in the phrase. Figure 2 shows an example of this.
The first phrase contains 9 morae; the second has 18, so it will take about twice as longto say.
猫

は

ネズミ

を 追う。

Ne/ko / wa / ne/zu/mi / wo / o/u.
Cats chase mice.
その

猫

は

その

(9 syllables)

ネズミを追いかけている。

So/no / ne/ko / wa / so/no / ne/zu/mi / wo / o/i/ka/ke/te/i/ru. (18 syllables)
That cat is chasing that mouse.
Figure 2. Example of mora-timed language. Adapted from Ohata, 2004.

Stress-timed languages like English can pose difficulties for learners with a syllableor mora-timed L1. They may tend to stress syllables equally, without reducing weaksyllables or stressing strong syllables sufficiently. According to Ohata (2004), stressin Japanese comes from simply saying the word at a higher pitch, whereas in English,
stressed syllables are also longer and louder. This difference contributes to the rhythmic
pattern of stresses in English, as well as the more uniform sound of Japanese: changing
just the pitch does not lend the same prominence to stressed syllables as changing pitch,
intensity, and duration. In addition, many Japanese words have no accent, so it is notuncommon for entire phrases to be unaccented (Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986).

Pitch and Intonational Patterns
The pitch range used in Japanese versus in English also tends to vary; in general,
Japanese uses less pitch variation, while English uses a wider range (Han, 1963; Ohata,

170

Prosodic Features of Japanese and English

2004). In fact, Han claimed that “what is a significant rise or fall in Japanese does notsound important at all to the English speaker’s ear” (p. 8). He stated that in Japanese,
the relative change in pitch between syllables is more important than the absolute range.
Although Japanese and English both use some similar intonation patterns—for example,
the use of rising intonation to indicate a yes-no question—the degree of change in pitch
tends to be different (Ohata, 2004).
Pitch is measured over the course of a contained unit of speech often called anintonation unit or intonational phrase (IP). An IP consists of smaller units known as
accentual phrases (APs). An IP could be as short as a single word, or it could cover anentire multi-word sentence. In English, it should be marked by pauses both before andafter; it should be grammatically cohesive; it should contain (at least) one prominently
stressed element; and it should contain a complete intonation pattern (Celce-Murcia et al.,1996).
Intonational meaning is created at the AP level. In Japanese, the AP is also the realmof a process known as downstep or catathesis, where a pitch-accent triggers a falling
tone. Catathesis can be repeated, creating a “descending staircase” effect over multiple
APs (Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986; Pierrehumbert & Beckman, 1988). Catathesis
can occur in both Japanese and English.
The IP is the domain of final lowering, where the pitch is lowered significantly at theend of a declarative utterance; this also can occur in both languages. Declination, in which
the fundamental frequency of the pitch gradually lowers—or declines—over the courseof the utterance, also occurs on the IP level in Japanese (Beckman & Pierrehumbert,
1986; Deguchi & Kitagawa, 2002; Pierrehumbert & Beckman, 1988). Pierrehumbert &Beckman did not find evidence of declination in English.

Summary
Although there are some similarities, prosody in English and Japanese does exhibit
many differences. These could potentially pose problems for Japanese learners of English.
Items that showed the most variation included the use of accents to provide intonational
meaning in English, while they are used less frequently as lexical item markers inJapanese; the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables in English and timed
mora in Japanese; and the greater range of pitch in English versus a reduced pitch range

171

愛知大学

言語と文化

No. 34and declination in Japanese. These, then, are the prosodic features that are important tobe aware of as a language teacher. They should also be introduced to learners, in order to
aid them in comprehension and production of the language.
References
Abe, I. (1998). Intonation in Japanese. In D. Hirst & A. Di Cristo (Eds.), Intonation
systems: A survey of twenty languages (pp. 360–375). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
University Press.
Allen, V. F. (1971). Teaching intonation, from theory to practice. TESOL Quarterly, 5(1),73–81.
Beckman, M., & Pierrehumbert, J. (1986). Intonational structure in Japanese and English.
Phonology Yearbook, 3, 255–309.
Bolinger, D. (1998). Intonation in Japanese. In D. Hirst & A. Di Cristo (Eds.), Intonation
systems: A survey of twenty languages (pp. 360–375). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
University Press.
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin, J. M. (1996). Teaching pronunciation:
A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press.
Deguchi, M., & Kitagawa, Y. (2002). Prosody and wh-questions. In M. Hirotani (Ed.),
Proceedings of the thirty-second annual meeting of the North East Linguistic Society(pp. 73–92). Amherst: GLSA.
Fernald, A. (1989). Intonation and communicative intent in mothers’ speech to infants: Is
the melody the message? Child Development, 60(6), 1497–1510.
Han, M. (1963). The problem of pitch in the teaching of Japanese. The Journal-Newsletterof the Association of Teachers of Japanese, 1(1), 5–9.
Hayes, B. (2009). Introductory phonology. West Sussex, UK: Wiley & Blackwell.
Hirst, D., & Di Cristo, A. (1998). A survey of intonation systems. In D. Hirst & A.
Di Cristo (Eds.), Intonation systems: A survey of twenty languages (pp. 360–375).
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Jusczyk, P., Cutler, A., & Redanz, N. (1993). Infants’ preference for the predominantstress patterns of English words. Child Development, 64(3), 675–687.
Kureta, Y., Fushimi, T., & Tatsumi, I. (2006). The functional unit in phonologicalencoding: Evidence for moraic representation in native Japanese speakers. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 32(5), 1102–1119.
Levis, J. (1999). Intonation in theory and practice, revisited. TESOL Quarterly, 33(1),37–63.
Ohata, K. (2004). Phonological differences between Japanese and English: Several

172

Prosodic Features of Japanese and English

potentially problematic. Language Learning, 22, 29–41.
Pierrehumbert, J., & Beckman, M. (1988). Japanese tone structure. Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press.
Pitrelli, J., Beckman, M., & Hirschberg, J. (1994). Evaluation of prosodic transcription
labeling reliability in the ToBI framework. Proceedings of the International Conferenceon Spoken Language Processing, Yokohama, 2, 123–126.
Silverman, K., Beckman, M., Pitrelli, J., Ostendorf, M., Wightman, C., Price, P.,
Pierrehumbert, J., & Hirschberg, J. (1992). TOBI: a standard for labeling English
prosody. In The Second International Conference on Spoken Language Processing,ICSLP 1992, Banff, Alberta, Canada, October 13–16, 1992.
Venditti, J. J. (2005). The J_ToBI model of Japanese intonation. In S. A. Jun (Ed.)
Prosodic typology: The phonology of intonation and phrasing (pp. 172–200). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

173