Fusion and Non-fusion Accents of Japanese Compound Nouns: The Effect of Focusing on the Meaning of the Posterior Element

Abstract

The accent pattern of Japanese compound nouns is classified into two types: fusion (where the accents are fused into a single unit with the middle-high form as a whole) or a non-fusion (the accents are not fused into a single middle-high form as a whole). Some compound nouns have both fusion and non-fusion accents. In this study, a listening survey was conducted to investigate whether the use of fusion and non-fusion accents is affected by the focus on the meaning of the posterior element. The results show that the naturalness of non-fusion accents increases when the focus is on the action or state of the posterior element; however, the naturalness of fusion accents does not change.