Dublin Core
Title
PITCH CONTOUR OF JAPANESE TRADITIONAL VERSE
Subject
Haiku, Japanese
Haiku--theses and dissertations
Description
ABSTRACT
In this thesis I conduct experiments to investigate how pitch pattern is realized in Japanese Traditional Verses. My observation consists of four parts: (i) investigation of
lexical pitch and accentual combinations of Contemporary haiku in prose and in verse (ii)
investigation of lexical pitch and accentual combinations of Basho’s traditional haiku (iii) observation of Nonsense
haiku and (iv) pitch range measurements of Contemporary haiku in prose and in verse. As a result, the following characteristics are found: Japanese speakers (i) tend to recite Contemporary haiku that include familiar lexemes with expected pitch patterns, compared with Basho’s Traditional haiku that include more lexemes unfamiliar to the subjects (ii) have two major pitch template choices, which I term “Plateau” and “Default”, when reciting Nonsense verses, and the occurrences of these pitch patterns are supported by Japanese phonological notions such as default-accent
, downsteps or declining, and (iii) tend to read haiku
in verse with a wider pitch range than that in prose. This thesis shows that a generalization of poetic recitation
performance among human languages is as valuable as a study of poetic forms from texts. The findings from the observations suggest that diversity among speakers’
recitations of Japanese verses is also phonologically explainable, and explainable, and sheds light on the
studies of prosody and metrical theory in general linguistics.
In this thesis I conduct experiments to investigate how pitch pattern is realized in Japanese Traditional Verses. My observation consists of four parts: (i) investigation of
lexical pitch and accentual combinations of Contemporary haiku in prose and in verse (ii)
investigation of lexical pitch and accentual combinations of Basho’s traditional haiku (iii) observation of Nonsense
haiku and (iv) pitch range measurements of Contemporary haiku in prose and in verse. As a result, the following characteristics are found: Japanese speakers (i) tend to recite Contemporary haiku that include familiar lexemes with expected pitch patterns, compared with Basho’s Traditional haiku that include more lexemes unfamiliar to the subjects (ii) have two major pitch template choices, which I term “Plateau” and “Default”, when reciting Nonsense verses, and the occurrences of these pitch patterns are supported by Japanese phonological notions such as default-accent
, downsteps or declining, and (iii) tend to read haiku
in verse with a wider pitch range than that in prose. This thesis shows that a generalization of poetic recitation
performance among human languages is as valuable as a study of poetic forms from texts. The findings from the observations suggest that diversity among speakers’
recitations of Japanese verses is also phonologically explainable, and explainable, and sheds light on the
studies of prosody and metrical theory in general linguistics.
Creator
Yamamoto, Shiho
Publisher
University of Montana
Date
2011
Rights
All rights reserved.
Format
pdf
Language
eng
Type
dissertation