Analysis of accent and intonation in the Northern Kanto Area

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This research recorded spontaneous conversational speech in Tochigi prefecture which is a part of the northern Kanto accentless area, and analyzed pitch patterns of the speech, examined current aspects of accent and intonation. It is said that phrase-final and sentence-final rising(shiriagari-cho) is a characteristic feature of accentless dialects. However, I confirmed that a tendency of the occurrence position of final rising is almost same as standard Japanese and the frequency of final rising is not higher than standard Japanese. According to auditory tests by using manipulated speech, it is revealed that the difference between shiriagari-cho in accentless dialects and rising intonation of standard Japanese is degree of rising. In addition, I investigated about word accent and accent of the preceding section of "jane?" which is used as demand of agreement. More than 90% of younger people in the region use the standard accent system. On the other hand, more than 80% of them flattened the preceding section of "jane?" The transition of the usage of accent in recent years in the region became clear by this research.