Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet: Japanese

4 Pages·1999·0.16 MB·English

by  Okada, Hideo

Japanese
HideoOkada
6-29-22Sakuradai,Nerima-ku,Tokyo176-0002,Japan
ThestyleofspeechillustratedisthatofmanyeducatedJapanesebroughtupinTokyoor
otherareaswithsimilarpitchaccentsystems.Thetranscriptionisbasedonarecordingofa
25-year-old student whose speech is typical of speakers of his age group with this
background.
Consonants
118 Handbook ofthe IPA
Vowel length
9
IllustrationsoftheIPA 11
Therearetwolexicallyrelevantpitchlevels: highandlow.Within aword,ifthefirst
mora is high-pitched, the second is inevitably low-pitched, and vice versa. A mora
transcribedwithanacuteaccent,a,issaidtobeaccentedandishigh.Ifmorethanonemora
precedes it, the highpitch extends towards the beginning ofthe word up to the second
mora. Awordwithno accentmarkbeginslow andcontinueshighfromthe secondmora
onwards. All moras following the accent are low until another accented orpolysyllabic
wordisreached,whentheseaccentuationrulesreapply.Notethatwordpairssuchas/nasi/
'bridge' and /nasi/ 'end' are both low-high when spoken in isolation, but will be
distinguishedwhensomethingelsefollows.Whatfollowswillbelowaftertheaccent,but
otherwisehigh.Whenalong(two-mora)vowelistranscribedwithanaccent,onlythefirst
moraishigh,andapitchdropoccursbetweenthetwomoras.
Transcription of recorded passage
arutoki kitakaze to taijo: ga tsikarakutabe o simasita. tabibito no gaito: o
nugaseta ho: ga katsl to ju: koto ni kimete, mazu, kitakaze kara
hazimemasita. kitakaze wa, nani, hitomakuti ni site misejo:, to, hagesiku
hukitatemasita. suruto tabibito wa, kitakaze ga hukeba hukuhodo gaito: o
sikkarko karada ni kuttsukemasita. koNdo wa taijo: no baN ni narjmasita.
taijo: wa kumo no aida kara jasasii kao o dasite, atatakana hikari o
okurimasita. tabibito wa daNdaN joi kokoromotsi ni natte, simai ni wa
gaito: o nugimasita. sokode kitakaze no make ni narjmasita.
Romanization (Hepburn system)
ArutokiKitakazetoTaiyogachikara-kurabeoshimashita.Tabibitonogaitoonugasetaho
gakachi to yukoto ni kimete, mazu Kitakaze karahajimemashita. Kitakaze wa, 'Nani,
hitomakurinishitemiseyo',to,hageshikufukitatemashita.Surutotabibitowa,Kitakazega
fukebafukuhodogaitooshikkaritokaradanikuttsukemashita.KondowaTaiyonobanni
narimashita. Taiyowa kumo no aida kara yasashii kao o dashite, atatakana hikari o
okurimashita. Tabibito wa dandan yoi kokoromochi ni natte, shimai ni wa gaito o
nugimashita.SokodeKitakazenomakeninarimashita.
Orthographic version
Handbook of the International Phonetic Association
:
A
Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Association, July 1999.