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These words all begin with 花(はな↓), but they all have different pitch accent patterns.

花火 は↓なび (There is also 花火↓師)

花芽 はな↓め

花見 はなみ↓ (also, 花見↓月 vs 花見時 which is 平板)

Knowing that the pitch accent of each word is 火↓、芽↓、見↓る(also, 見↓事) does not help me identify a pattern either. What are the rules that causes the words to change their pitch accent in compound words?

All references for pitch accent come from スーパー大辞林

1 Answers1

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This is unfortunately exceptionally complex and irregular, but there are essentially patterns which you can carve out of other patterns and then out of those carve more exceptions.

The first pattern is that a two-mora + one-mora word generally becomes atamadaka (maybe 60% of words?). However you need to carve out a huge number of exceptions. But that is the default.

  1. 花火: So, は\なび falls into that pattern with no need to think of it being exceptional. It avoids the kunyomi-compound pattern I mention later due to being rendaku’d.

  2. 花芽: Very often, N+N kunyomi compounds (particularly when they are not rendakued) can result in a drop between the two kunyomi words — this gives the feeling that the two words are still somewhat distinct, not completely merged. I’d say this is what はな\め falls into. (Compare やまがわ ̄ (a mountain river) vs やま\かわ (mountains and rivers)). This is a very common pattern, like つき\ひ, はる\かぜ, etc. Perhaps even worth thinking of it as the default.

  3. 花見: はなみ\, つきみ\, ゆきみ\ are sort of their own class of class of exception. In general N+V kunyomi words become heiban, but you occasionally see some odaka words when V is one mora like 足蹴\ 雨着\ 春着\ , but even the one-mora V words tend to be heiban so these are still exceptions.

  4. 花火師: 〜\師 , being the one actual suffix you listed (as opposed to just being the second half of a word) has far more consistent pitch: it always causes the word to drop before the suffix (看護師、伝道師、道化師 etc). The NHK accent dictionary lists verb many such suffixes on their own. Some cause a drop before the suffix, some cause the word to become heiban (〜的、〜上(じょう)、〜語, etc), some cause it to become odaka (〜後), some a drop in the middle of the word (like 〜人 in its secondary pattern: にほんじ\ん, ちょうせんじ\ん, たいわんじ\ん, which seems to activate when the word it connects to is odaka. The normal pattern is \じん though: アメリカ\じん、ちゅうごく\じん、かんこく\じん)

In the end there are so many exceptions that the only way to succeed is to train your ear, get a ton of exposure, and get corrections; but noticing patterns and storing exceptions more efficiently can be a decent stopgap towards building a useful feedback/correction loop for yourself along the way. Eventually these just turn into “intuition” (probably).

Darius Jahandarie
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  • Thank you for these explanations, they are informative and give me an idea of the sort of patterns to look for – Janusz ヤヌシュ Dec 13 '20 at 07:55
  • Darius, are there references behind the observations, or are they just developed from your intuitions? – jogloran Dec 13 '20 at 22:41
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    @jogloran I double checked the actual word accents in NHK, but anything beyond that is just my own observations (though I think I've seen similar claims in various places; unfortunately no idea where at this point). – Darius Jahandarie Dec 13 '20 at 23:04
  • ちょうせんじ\ん, たいわんじ\ん, do you have a source for these? In my mind にほんじ\ん is the only exception to the \じん pattern, and the drop usually moves forward when there's a ん, ちょうせ\んじん, たいわ\んじん – dainichi Feb 10 '21 at 14:22
  • @dainichi Not in any dictionary, but you should be able to find them on Youglish. They are definitely じ\ん though (in standard JP). Were you raised with any dialectical influences by any chance? Because I’ve heard people from Kansai say them as \んじん. – Darius Jahandarie Feb 10 '21 at 15:19
  • @DariusJahandarie First, thanks for making me aware that Youglish is available for Japanese! I'll admit that I hear a lot more variation than I thought I would. I hear people speaking standard-ish Japanese using both. Unfortunately I don't have the NHK accent dictionary to see what it has to say about it. – dainichi Feb 12 '21 at 00:03
  • @DariusJahandarie Assuming you're right, do you know by which rule the drop comes in じ\ん, if there is one? I don't think I hear anybody saying すぺいんじ\ん – dainichi Feb 12 '21 at 00:06
  • @dainichi The NHK accent dictionary unfortunately doesn’t say anything detailed here. It lists both accent patterns for 〜人 but the only mentions 日本人 and 野蛮人 for the じ\ん pattern — or so I thought, but it actually lists 朝鮮人 too for it too (I think this might be a recent addition because I don’t remember this being here before...). And yeah I agree it doesn’t occur for スペイン人. It also doesn’t occur for 香港人. So I think the major trigger is when the underlying word is already accented on the penultimate mora. This doesn’t account for 野蛮人 but accounts for 台湾 and 朝鮮 nicely. – Darius Jahandarie Feb 12 '21 at 01:00