Four accentual patterns of common Japanese, which are based on the difference of pitches between moras, seem to be inadequate to set up phonological rules of common Japanese accent, because it is generally ineffective to describe deep structures by means of surface forms. Then we will try to build phonological accentual patterns through which we can research the deep structures of common Japanese accent. Like Classical Greek and Latin, Japanese is said to belong to a group of mora-counting languages, which usually make use of both syllables and moras as prosodic units. Common Japanese, accordingly, can be expected to employ the double-count method as in the abovementioned classical languages. In place of the prevalent patterns, therefore, we will make use of the famous Greek accentual patterns, which may correspond to the current ones of common Japanese as follows:(oxytone tail-high type),
(oxytone, paroxytone, proparoxytone convex-type). If we can regard the four patterns as phonetic, the patters which will be used hereafter may be regarded as phonological, because in the latter the accent core is considered to fall on the syllable, not on the mora. What follows is a comparison of phonological patterns with phonetic ones in regard to the effectiveness of formalization of common Japanese accent.

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