Japanese pitch accent

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, lit. 'high-and-low accent'), 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, lit. 'strong-and-weak accent'), which refers to stress. An alternative term is takasa akusento (高さアクセント, lit. 'height accent') which contrasts with tsuyosa akusento (強さアクセント, lit. 'strength accent').