The conventional Yamaguchi dialect has an accent nucleus on special morae. This phonological feature, however, has been decreasing in frequency of occurrences among people in the younger generation. Thus, the present study investigated generational differences in the accent nucleus position of words includingspecial morae in the Yamaguchi dialect. To confirm this recent change, 16 people in the younger generation (born from 1984 to 1990)and 16 in the older generation(born from 1931 to 1946), who have never livedoutside of Yamaguchi Prefecture, were selected to produce 60 words including four kinds of special morae. The results showed that people in the younger generation are likely to put the accent nucleus not on thespecial mora, but one mora before it, far more frequently than those in the older generation; more precisely younger versus older, 5.42% vs. 39.58% for /N/, 1.67% vs. 44.58% for /H/, 0.83% vs. 13.33% for /Q/, and 10.83% vs. 58.75% for /J/. The study confirmed that people in the older generation displayed the frequency order /J/>/H/=/N/>/Q/ for putting accents on the special morae, whereas those in the youngergeneration displayed the order /J/>/N/>/H/=/Q/.
