Urgent Research on the Accents of Major Ryukyuan Dialects

日本与那国方言有三种重音系统（a、B、C）。然而，A和C的实现取决于重音单位的最后一个音节是否重。当最后一个音节是轻音节时，我们必须添加另一个自由词或以重音节结尾的小品，以使区别出现。这种特点可以用以下变化来解释：最后的降音只发生在最后的轻音节上。这种变化没有发生在最后的重音节中，在那里旧的音高模式被保留了下来。发现音调上升和音调下降都向右移动。

The Yonaguni dialect of Japanese has a three-pattern accent system (A, B, C). However, the realization of A and C depends on whether the final syllable of the accentual unit is heavy or not. When the final syllable is light, we have to add another free word or a particle ending in heavy syllable to make the distinction appear. This peculiarity can be explained by the following change : The loss of the final falling pitch has occurred only in the final light syllable. The change has not occurred in the final heavy syllables, where the old pitch patterns are preserved. Both pitch-rise and pitch-fall are found to have moved rightward.