Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. In a pitch-accented language, there is one accented syllable or mora in a word, the position of which determines the tonal pattern of the whole word. This article discusses the unit of speech. ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress) in some languages. ...

This is unlike the situation in tone languages, where the tone of each syllable can be independent of the other syllables in the word. For example, comparing two-syllable words like [aba] in a pitch-accented language and in a tonal language, both of which only distinguish low tone from high, the tonal language has four possible patterns: low-low [àbà], high-high [ábá], high-low [ábà], low-high [àbá]. The pitch-accent language, on the other hand, only has two possibilities: accented on the first syllable, [ába], or on the second, [abá]. Tone refers to the use of pitch in language to distinguish words. ...

In Indo-European languages

It is hypothesized that Proto-Indo-European had a pitch accent system. Some well-known ancient Indo-European tongues to have preserved this feature are: The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. ...

• Ancient Greek had a pitch accent, which later changed into a stress accent (where accented syllables are pronounced more forcefully, as in English, instead of having a higher pitch).
• Vedic Sanskrit.

In other Indo-European languages, such as Swedish, Norwegian, Lithuanian, and Serbo-Croatian (from Proto-Slavic), a new pitch accent system evolved that is unrelated to that of Proto-Indo-European. In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Sanskrit language (Skt. ... Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian (srpskohrvatski or hrvatskosrpski), earlier also Serbo-Croat, was an official language of Yugoslavia (along with Slovenian and Macedonian). ... Proto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Old Church Slavonic and other Slavic languages later emerged. ...

In Serbo-Croatian

In Serbo-Croatian, lexical words (such as nouns) of one syllable always have a falling tone. Words with two or more syllables may also have a falling tone, but (with the exception of foreign borrowings and interjections) only on the first syllable. However, they may instead have a rising tone, on any syllable but the last. In linguistics, a lexical word belongs to one of the open parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. ...

Enclitics (little grammatical words which latch on to a preceding lexical word) never have a pitch accent. Proclitics (clitics which latch on to a following word), on the other had, may "steal" a falling tone (but not a rising tone) from the following word. This stolen accent may end up being either falling or rising on the proclitic: In linguistics, a clitic is a morpheme that functions syntactically like a word, but does not appear as an independent phonological word; instead it is always attached to a following or preceding word. ... In linguistics, a grammatical word belongs to one of the closed parts of speech such as pronouns, numerals, and prepositions, which do not readily admit new members. ... In linguistics, a clitic is a morpheme that functions syntactically like a word, but does not appear as an independent phonological word; instead it is always attached to a following or preceding word. ...

In Japanese

Japanese is often described as having pitch accent. (See Japanese pitch accent.) However, unlike in Serbo-Croatian, it is only found in about 20% of Japanese words; 80% are unaccented. This "accent" may be characterized as a downstep rather than as pitch accent. The pitch of a word rises until it reaches a downstep, then drops abruptly. In a two-syllable word, this results in a contrast between high-low and low-high; accentless words are also low-high, but the pitch of following enclitics differentiates them. Most dialects of the Japanese language have lexically-distinct pitch accent, though the position of the accent for a given word may vary among them. ... Downstep is a phonemic or phonetic downward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language. ...

In Shanghainese

The Shanghai dialect of Wu Chinese is marginally tonal, with characteristics of pitch accent. Shanghainese (上海话; pinyin: Shànghǎihuà, lumazi: Zanheireiwo, Shanghainese in IPA: ), sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai. ...

Not counting closed syllables (those with a final glottal stop), a Shanghainese word of one syllable may carry one of three tones, high, mid, low. (These tones have a contour in isolation, but for our purposes that can be ignored.) However, low always occurs after voiced consonants, and only there. Thus the only tonal distinction is after voiceless consonants and in vowel-initial syllables, and then there is only a two-way distinction between high and mid. In a polysyllabic word, the tone of the first syllable determines the tone of the entire word. If the first tone is high, following syllables are mid; if mid or low, the second syllable is high, and any following syllables are mid. Thus a mark for high tone is all that is needed to write tone in Shanghainese: The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ...

See also

• Timing
• Tonal language

In linguistics, the timing in a language comprises the rhythmic qualities of speech, in particular how syllables are distributed across time. ... Tone refers to the use of pitch in language to distinguish words. ...

External link

http://www.geocities.com/caraculiambro/Caraculiambro/Stress.html