catathesis

Noun

catathesis (plural catatheses)

1. (dated, rare) Downstep or downdrift, particularly in non-tonal languages such as Japanese and English.
   • The term ‘downstep’ was first used to refer to certain well-known phenomena in African tone languages that vaguely resemble the tonal implementation phenomenon we describe here. Since we are not in a position now to evaluate the precise extent of the formal similarity between the two classes of...1986, Mary E. Beckman, Janet B. Pierrehumbert, “Intonational structure in Japanese and English”, in Phonology Yearbook, volume 3, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, →DOI, S2CID, archived from...
   • The term “catathesis” rather than downstep was adopted for a time (Poser 1984; Beckman and Pierrehumbert 1986), in order to avoid the terminological conflicts inherent in the use of downdrift vs. downstep and automatic vs. non-automatic downstep [...]; usage has since reverted to, and settled on...2011 March 11, Bruce Connell, “Downstep” (chapter 35), Suprasegmental and Prosodic Phonology (II), in Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, Keren Rice, editors, The Blackwell Companion...