This paper investigates tonal phenomena in Nagasaki Japanese (NJ), especially in loanwords, and argues that the pitch accent
system of NJ is sensitive to the position of pitch fall rather than the presence vs. absence of pitch fall. There are two
types of tonal patterns that may occur in an NJ word: Type A tone (a fall pitch pattern) and Type B tone (a non-fall pitch
pattern). Previous studies on ongoing tonal changes in Kagoshima Japanese (KJ), which has a tonal system similar to that of
NJ, revealed that accented words in Tokyo Japanese (TJ) are realized as Type A tones and unaccented words in TJ are realized
as Type B tones in KJ. In contrast, a loanword in NJ is realized as a Type A tone if the loanword is accented on either of
the first two morae in TJ; otherwise the loanword is realized as a Type B tone in NJ. This paper proposes that both NJ and
KJ speakers have TJ forms as input, but only NJ speakers delete an accent on the third or later mora during the adaptation
process. The proposal accounts for the tonal neutralization of compounds in NJ, which occurs when the first member contains
three or more morae.
Keywords Accent - Tone - Loanword - Nagasaki Japanese