弘前方言の音調メロデー

抄録

The tone system of the Hirosaki dialect is discussed in this paper. The basic tone melody of the Hirosaki Dialect is LH (Low-High) and all syllables become high-toned before a phrase boundary if followed by another phrase. The lowering of a final tone before a phrase is a mirror image process of the Tokyo dialect's Initial Lowering. The lowering of a tone is arbitrary and predictable, and we cannot say that there is a falling of tone after an accented syllable, but we rather say that there is a rising of tone before an accented syllable. As the basic tone melody of the Hirosaki dialect is just the opposite of that of the Tokyo dialect, HL, the Tone Association Rules of the Hirosaki dialect are partially different from those of the Tokyo dialect, and the domain of application is also different for each other. There are three kinds of accent movement rules in the Hirosaki dialect. When a final accented word is followed by a certain type of enclitic, the accent moves to the initial syllable of the enclitic. When an accented consonant stem verb is followed by a -ta or -te suffix, the accent moves to the suffix. The third rule moves the accent of the first syllable to the second syllable with a non-high vowel within a word boundary. Finally, Downdrift is presented to derive a surface tone melody in acual speech.