日本語의 액센트에 대하여

Abstract

A previously unquestioned view about Japanese accent has been that the dialects spoken around the old capital of Kyoto are the most conservative in Japan. Proto Japanese accent has been made virtually identical to the modern Kyoto system. But this view does not accord with the linguistic evidence, which points unmistakeably towards innovations in Kyoto. The present article outlines a completely new interpretation of Japanese accent history, according to which the Kyoto dialect separated from the surrounding dialects in historical times. The principal structural change was the movement of the accent locus one syllable to the left. The original accent locations have been preserved in other main-island dialects, including that of Tokyo. Once examined from this new viewpoint, a number of mysterioes about Japanese accent can be clarified. Some of these long-standing problems and their solutions are discussed here.