The Accent System of the Onotsu Dialect: From a Viewpoint of Foreign Words and Place Names

Abstract

By investigating the accent of foreign words and place names, my opinion that the Onotsu dialect in Kikai-jima, Amami, has a three-pattern accent system is reconfirmed. The system is very complicated because of a combination of constraints of word length and special morae. The word length is pertinent to the position of an accent kernel. A long vowel and a moraic nasal have contrastive character in the accentuation of foreign words: in four-mora foreign words, all words ending in long vowels belong to the α-pattern, whereas all words ending in moraic nasals belong to the β-pattern.