Abstract
The alignment of the peak in Accentual Phrase (AP) varies between the second or the third syllable in Korean. Under the assumption that the alignment variation is systematic and linguistically conditioned, we investigated if the following factors affect the peak alignment in Korean; the number of phonological words in an AP, the presence/absence of the preceding AP, focus type, the location of a morpheme boundary and the presence of semantic content in the following morpheme. The results show that the accentual peak alignment is affected by the location of a morpheme boundary. The peak is aligned later, as the length of the AP initial morpheme increases. They also show that the realisation of narrow focus differs according to the AP structure in short sentences. In the short two-word AP, narrow focus is realised by making only the initial word prominent with earlier peak alignment, which lowers the scaling of the second word initial syllable. This suggests that the peak alignment has accentual function to bring prominence onto a part (or whole) of an AP and the first word functions as a focus exponent projecting focus onto the target AP.
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Notes
- 1.
Frota (2002) provides the following examples of the neutral and the focal falls in the intonational phrase initial position. Stressed syllable is in capitals, narrowly focused item in bold and the expected intonational phrasing is indicated with square brackets and ‘I’.
Neutral : [As angoLAnas]I [ofereceram especiarias aos jornalistas]I
‘The Angolans gave spices to the journalists’
Focal : [As angoLAnas ofereceram especiarias aos jornalistas]I
- 2.
The (voiceless) alveolar fricatives are traditionally classified as lenis and fortis and transcribed as /s/ and /s’/, respectively (e.g., Huh 1985). In Jun’s work, however, the lenis is transcribed as /sh/ and, therefore, classified as [+stiff vocal cords]. For further details, the reader is referred to Jun (1996).
- 3.
Expanding the K-ToBI tone tier to add a phonetic tone tier, Jun (2000) explains that the decision was made ‘in order to describe surface tonal patterns which are not predictable from the underlying tones’ and ‘to investigate if there is any meaning difference among [the varying contours]’
- 4.
It should be noted that the second part of the stress rule allows accent (i.e., pitch prominence) to fall on the second syllable of a morpheme. This is possible, as a ‘rhythm unit’, AP level prosodic unit in Lee’s model, may contain anacrusis, unstressed syllable(s) preceding a stress. A rhythm unit is defined as optional anacrusis, an obligatory stressed/accented syllable and the following (optional) unstressed syllables. It is not clear what Lee indicates with ‘important linguistic difference’ in his stress rule. However, comparing the two possible stress patterns of /tsa.doŋ.tɕha/ ‘automobile, car’ and /kε.ɡu.ɾi/ ‘frog’, he acknowledges that placing stress (and accent) on the second syllable makes them sound emphatic (1990: 47-48). This suggests that phonological stress should fall exclusively on the first syllable of a morpheme regardless of the syllable count and, therefore, that an AP should actually start at the initial syllable of a phonological word.
- 5.
Note that measuring VOT (voice onset time) does not apply to /n/ and /t/ among the tested alveolar consonants. Particularly, /t/ is voiced when located AP medially and it is voiced both in the phonological word initial and medial syllables. On the other hand, /t’/ does not display the identical characteris-tics as / th/.
- 6.
Also, the speakers employed L+HLa far more consistently than L+HL+Ha, for instance. Targeting L+HL+Ha frequently resulted in the use of other contour shapes, notably, L+HHa and L+HLa.
- 7.
/-ɾo/ simply adds directionality to the meaning of the lexical item it is attached to and may actually be translated as any preposition (or, in certain cases, adverb) in English that indicates direction, e.g. /wi. wi. -ɾo/ ‘up’-‘to’ meaning ‘upward’ or ‘up’.
- 8.
The lenis voicess velar plosive in the initial syllable (i.e. the onset consonant) of /ɡoŋ.dʑu/ becomes voiced in /o. ɾo. ɾa. ɡoŋ. dʑu/, as it is in intervocalic position.
- 9.
This was replaced with ‘with (my) boyfriend’ for female speakers.
- 10.
There were total of eight conditions, two conditions for each of the three control factors; Number of phonological words × AP location × focus type (2 × 2 × 2).
- 11.
It should be noted that, on strict terms, (12) and (13) differ in focus type (see the appendix for the full material). Unlike (12), the target initial phrase in (13) is in contrastive focus as it contrasts with /mεƐ.il/ ‘daily, everyday’ in the question. Nonetheless, it is not likely that contrastive focus brings prominence on to /tsu.mal/ ‘weekend’ in /tsu.mal-.ma.da/ ‘every weekend’, as the contrast is in the semantics not the segments. The contrast is analogous to ‘daily’ and ‘every weekend’ in English.
- 12.
Huh (1993: 204) states ‘… [auxiliary particles] add special, refining meaning [to the noun which they attach to].’ (my translation)
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Martine Grice for her insightful and invaluable discussions and advice. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thorough comments. My special thanks to Reinhold Greisbach for his help in statistics.
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Appendices
Appendix A
1.1 Material – Experiment 1
1.1.1 Short Broad Focus – One Word
Situation: You had an accident and was in a hospital. Since a few days you are at home recovering. A friend of yours came by to see you on a Saturday afternoon.
Q: | What did you do all day today? | |
A: | [ mi.ɾa.n -i.ne] [ka.s’ʌ.s’ʌ.jo ] | |
‘Miran’- ‘home’ ‘went’ | ||
→ | I’ve been to Miran’s. |
1.1.2 Short Narrow Focus – One Word
Situation: You had an accident and was in a hospital. Since a few days you are at home recovering. You came just back home from a neighbour’s, when a friend of yours came by to see you on a Saturday afternoon.
Q: | We were worried! Where the hell have you been? | |
A: | [ mi.ɾa.n -i.ne] [ka.s’ʌ.s’ʌ.jo ] | |
→ | I’ve been to Miran’s. |
1.1.3 Short Broad Focus – Two Word
Situation: On Monday, during a coffee break at work, you are having a chat with a colleague/friend.
Q: | What did you do at the weekend? | |
A: | [o.ɾo.ɾa. ɡoŋ.dʑu] | [ pwa.s’ʌ.jo] |
‘Aurora’ ‘princess’ | ‘saw’ | |
→ | I saw ‘Princess Aurora’. |
1.1.4 Short Narrow Focus – Two Word
Situation: On Monday, during a coffee break at work, you are having a chat with a colleague/friend.
Q: | What movie did you see? | |
A: | [o.ɾo.ɾa. ɡoŋ.dʑu] | [ pwa.s’ʌ.jo] |
→ | I saw ‘Princess Aurora’. |
1.1.5 Long Broad Focus – One Word
Situation: You had an accident and was in a hospital. Since a few days you are at home recovering. A friend of yours came by to see you on a Saturday afternoon.
Q: | What did you do all day today? | |||
A: | [sim.si.mε.sʌ] | [ mi.ɾa.n..i.ne] | [ka.s’ʌ.s’ʌ.jo ] | |
‘bored ’ | ‘Miran’- ‘home’ | ‘went’ | ||
→ | I was bored, so I’ve been to Miran’s. | |||
1.1.6 Long Narrow Focus – One Word
Situation: You had an accident and was in a hospital. Since a few days you are at home recovering. You came just back home from a neighbour’s, when a friend of yours came by to see you on a Saturday afternoon.
Q: | We were all worried! Where the hell have you been? | ||
A: | [sim.si.mε.sʌ] | [ mi.ɾa.n..i.ne] | [ka.s’ʌ.s’ʌ.jo ] |
‘bored ’ | ‘Miran’- ‘home’ | ‘went’ | |
→ | I was bored, so I’ve been to Miran’s. | ||
1.1.7 Long Broad Focus – Two Word
Situation: On Monday, during a coffee break at work, you are having a chat with a colleague/friend.
Q: | What did you do at the weekend? | ||
A: | [jʌ.dza.tɕhin.ɡu... ɾaŋ] | [o.ɾo.ɾa. ɡoŋ.dʑu] | [ pwa.s’ʌ.jo] |
‘girlfriend’ - ‘with’ | ‘Aurora’ ‘princess’ | ‘saw’ | |
→ | With my girlfriend I saw ‘Princess Aurora’. | ||
1.1.8 Long Narrow Focus – Two Word
Situation: On Monday, during a coffee break at work, you are having a chat with a colleague/friend.
Q: | What movie did you see yesterday? | ||
A: | [ʌ.dze. nƜn] | [o.ɾo.ɾa. ɡoŋ.dʑu] | [ pwa.s’ʌ.jo] |
‘yesterday’ – particle | ‘Aurora’ ‘princess’ | ‘saw’ | |
→ | Yesterday I saw ‘Princess Aurora’. | ||
1.2 Material – Experiment 2
Q: | It’s such a beautiful necklace! Who are you going to present it to? | |
A: | [mi.na. -e.ɡe] | [tsul.k’ʌ.je.jo] |
‘Mina’- dative case marker | ‘will give/present’ | |
→ | (I) will present (it) to Mina. | |
Q: | You used to meet up with your boyfriend/girlfriend for lunch. Do you still see him/her *everyday? | |
A: | [tsu.mal. -ma.da] | [man.na.jo] |
‘weekend’- ‘every’ | ‘meet’ | |
→ | (I) see (him/her) every weekend. | |
* [mε.il] is used for ‘everyday’. | ||
Appendix B
Reference F0 values for tone and syllable scaling in Experiment 1
Reference F0 values for tonal scaling
speaker | Ref. value (Hz) |
M1 | 115.4 |
M2 | 90.4 |
M3 | 95.8 |
M4 | 146.0 |
F1 | 181.4 |
F2 | 204.6 |
Reference F0 values and scaling of /ne/ in one-word AP
Reference F0 values and scaling of /ɡoŋ/ in two-word AP
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Kim, K. (2011). The Alignment of Accentual Peaks in the Expression of Focus in Korean. In: Frota, S., Elordieta, G., Prieto, P. (eds) Prosodic Categories: Production, Perception and Comprehension. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0137-3_7
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