Article published In:
Australian Review of Applied LinguisticsVol. 23:1 (2000) ► pp.123–137
Learning the Japanese pitch accent
Verbs
Teaching and reference materials of Japanese frequently neglect the accentual features of words, and accentual distinctions have been claimed to carry a low functional load in the language. The aim of this article is to present evidence for the communicative importance of the pitch accent, and to provide a comprehensive pedagogically-oriented description of the accentual features of one important section of the vocabulary, Japanese verbs. Full accentual paradigms of verb forms are described, and common verbs are presented in heuristic groupings as an aid to learners in internalizing their accentual category membership.
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