While the main characteristic of accent in Japanese is that the highest accent is on the penult, there are many other important factors for words of various types.

Verb endings retain accent patterns of their own in addition to the accent of the verb stem.

Japanese surnames formed with combined kun reading word retain some original accent in the word units while conforming to the basic pattern.

Prosody relates to the rhythmic aspect of language in conjunction with accent. It is widely held that all Japanese syllables are of equal length, but this is also a myth. Differences in syllable length are especially important in pronunciation of single mora on syllables in compound nouns.

Prosody relates to the rhythmic aspect of language in conjunction with accent. It is widely held that all Japanese syllables are of equal length, but this is also a myth. Differences in syllable length are especially important in pronunciation of single mora on syllables in compound nouns.

Blue Sea Press is developing a more complete description, Japanese Accent, but this product has not yet been released.

The accent explanations provided by Blue Sea Press have been developed by Todd Adkisson. He graduated from the University of California—Davis in 1985 with a major in English-Writing and minor in Classical Greek. In 1990, he completed an intensive Japanese course at the University of Washington and thereafter lived in Japan for five years.

He has worked consistently as a translator and continued diligent study of Japanese over the subsequent years.

Over a four-year period beginning in 2002, Todd Adkisson engaged in determined study of Japanese accent. The existence of several different accent explanation systems was intriguing, and each was approached with serious examination.

During this study, it gradually became clear that existing accent description systems did not adequately explain Japanese accent or help second-language learners to master the language. The principles presented by Blue Sea Press are the result of an effort to provide an accurate and helpful accent description system.

Included research:

• Complete examination and summary of all accent points listed in 新明解日本語アクセント辞典 published by Sanseido, 2001. In particular, the アクセントの法則 explanations covering pages 1 to 110 in a special section in the back of this book.

• Review of descriptions in 新和英大辞典 , Fourth Edition, published by Kenkyusha in 1974. Main points are on page xi and dictionary entries conform to these points. (It is interesting that all attempts to mark accent were dropped with the Fifth Edition. Other reasons may be given, but insecurity about accurate accent description could certainly have been a factor.)

• Study and careful examination of accent description and examples given throughout Japanese For Everyone, a textbook published by Gakken, 1990.

• Consideration of other accent descriptions, including those in Beginning Japanese, published by Yale University Press (Part 1 in 1962 and Part 2 in 1963), and Japanese: The Spoken Language (Part 1), published by Yale University Press in 1987.

• Review of various web pages and reports offered on the Internet.

• Over 3000 hours of listening to audio recordings of native Japanese speakers while observing the audio waveforms of those recordings.

Other views are addressed in Accent Myths.

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