Japanese pitch accent

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Japanese pitch accent is a feature of the Japanese language that distinguishes words by accenting particular morae in most Japanese dialects. The nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, the word for "river" is [ka.waꜜ] in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent on the second mora, but in the Kansai dialect it is [kaꜜ.wa]. A final [i] or [ɯ] is often devoiced to [i̥] or [ɯ̥] after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant.

The Japanese term is kōtei akusento (高低アクセント, literally "high-and-low accent"),^[1] and it refers to pitch accent in languages such as Japanese and Swedish. It contrasts with kyōjaku akusento (強弱アクセント, literally "strong-and-weak accent"),^[1] which refers to stress. An alternative term is takasa akusento (高さアクセント, literally "height accent")^[2] which contrasts with tsuyosa akusento (強さアクセント, literally "strength accent").^[2]