Occurrence Conditions of Delayed Fundamental Frequency fall in Japanese Word of Tokyo Dialect Speakers

Abstract

In a delayed fundamental frequency (F0) fall or a late fall phenomenon, the F0 fall occurs on the post-accented mora in Japanese speech. This study conducted a large-scale investigation of the occurrence conditions of the delayed F0 fall for 230 words of 48 Tokyo-dialect Japanese speakers (21 males and 27 females). The results showed that the delayed F0 fall occurred more frequently (1) in female speech than in male speech, (2) in initial-accented words than in middle-accented words, (3) in longer words, (4) in words in which the accented mora was followed by a mora with a back vowel.