Some characteristics of pitch variations in Japanese

Abstract

An investigation of sentence intonation of Japanese on the basis of Kymograph records of the speech of two subjects who speak the Tokyo dialect demonstrates that the highest pitched segments of the syllables show a high degree of regularity: two-thirds of 343 syllables in conversational speech show either the same pitch in successive syllables or regular shifts of 17 vibrations per second or integral multiples of 17 vibrations, 70 per cent being shifts of 17 or of 34 vibrations per second. This suggests that these two figures represent a standard range of pitch (accentual) variation, the latter between low and high pitched syllables, and the former between low and mid or mid and high pitched syllables, within the range of voice of the two subjects.