Atamadaka

Atamadaka, literally head-high, is a category of pitch accent in Japanese phonology used in Standard Japanese. In this pattern, the first mora of a word carries a high pitch, and the remaining morae are pronounced with a lower pitch. The resulting contour is a prominent downstep after the initial syllable. This contrasts with other main accent types: nakadaka, where the fall occurs later within the word; odaka, where the high pitch is near the end before the final particle; and heiban, where no internal downstep occurs and pitch remains relatively level until a phrase boundary.

In practice, the exact realization of an atamadaka pattern can vary by dialect, speaker, and word length. The following particle after an atamadaka word may influence or reflect the contour, but the defining feature remains the high first mora followed by lower subsequent morae. The pattern is common in many two-mora words and also appears in longer words that retain the initial high tone.

Lexically, words with an atamadaka accent are annotated in Japanese dictionaries to indicate their accent type, aiding pronunciation and listening comprehension. Knowledge of this pattern helps learners reproduce natural prosody and distinguish minimal pairs that differ in pitch contour.

See also: Pitch accent; Japanese language; Nakadaka; Odaka; Heiban.