the nominal pitch accent system of south kyungsang

The nominal pitch accent system of South KyungsangKorean

Hyunjung Lee · Jie Zhang

Received: 13 August 2011 /Accepted: 11 January 2013 / Published online: 19 December 2013

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The current paper investigates the nominal pitch accent system in South

Kyungsang Korean through an acoustic study and presents a phonological analysis for

the system based on the acoustic results. The data were collected from fourmale South

Kyungsang speakers by recording monosyllabic and disyllabic nouns with various

types of suffixes. The pitch results confirmed the accent distinctions reported in earlier

works on the language, and we found that suffixes may also bear contrastive accent.

We analyzed the pitch accent system as having three pre-linked accents and one

default accent. Two of the pre-linked accents count from the left and are linked to the

initial and peninitial moras of the root, respectively, and both spread one mora to the

right. The other pre-linked accent counts from the right (penult) and does not spread.

This analysis fits in with the culminative tone typology established in Evans (Types of

tonal culminativity in language of Sichuan and elsewhere, 2009). An Optimality

Theoretic analysis that derives the surface tone patterns for both the default and pre-

linked accents is proposed, and the proposal is compared with earlier analyses of pitch

accents in North and South Kyungsang Korean.

Keywords South Kyungsang Korean · Pitch accent · Culminativity ·

Tone spreading · Optimality Theory

1 Introduction

The current study examines the nominal pitch accent system in South Kyungsang

Korean. Unlike Standard Seoul Korean, which does not distinguish words using

H. Lee · J. Zhang

Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, 1541 Lilac Lane, Lawrece, KS 66044, USA

H. Lee (&)

Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, 1010 E 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

123

J East Asian Linguist (2014) 23:71–111

DOI 10.1007/s10831-013-9119-x

tonal contrasts, North and South Kyungsang dialects of Korean may use tonal

differences in a word to cue meaning differences. We refer to the systems as pitch

accent systems as the use of tone in these languages is different from that in a

canonical tone language (e.g., Chinese) in that tone is restricted in its distribution

(see, e.g., Yip 2002). The North and South Kyungsang dialects share many of the

pitch contrasts, as shown in (1). But South Kyungsang preserved the rising pitch

accent (R) from Middle Korean (15th century), while North Kyungsang did not.

This R accent1 is realized as a rising tone on monosyllabic roots and as LH on

disyllabic roots in South Kyungsang whereas R has merged with H(H) in North

Kyungsang, as shown in (2). Due to different historical development between South

and North Kyungsang, while North Kyungsang has only one LH pattern, South

Kyungsang has two types of LHs that are distinguished morphophonemically, as

shown in (3) (Kenstowicz et al. 2008). The Kyungsang data are transcribed

according to the Yale Romanization (Martin 1992).

(1) South and North Kyungsang:

HL kacı ‘kind (n.)’

HH kacı ‘branch’

LH kacı ‘eggplant’

(2) South Kyungsang: North Kyungsang:

R nwun H nwu:n ‘snow’

LH salam HH sa:lam ‘person’

(3) South Kyungsang: North Kyungsang:

LH-L palam-ı LH-L palam-ı ‘wind-nom.’

LH-H salam-ı HH-L sa:lam-ı ‘person-nom.’

We focus on the nominal pitch pattern of SouthKyungsangKorean in this study, but

we also refer to previous studies on North Kyungsang for analytical insights (e.g.,

Kenstowicz and Sohn 1997;Kim 1997; Chang 2005; Lee 2008).We start by reviewing

the descriptive patterns of pitch accent in South Kyungsang and proposing the goals of

the current study.We then report an acoustic study of four South Kyungsang speakers

on their use of pitch accent, followed by a formal analysis of the pitch accent system.

1 Some other studies (Utsugi 2009; Lee and Davis 2009) use the L tone description instead of R. We

adopt the R tone description for the following two reasons. First, the R description better reflects its

phonetic properties than the L description as it better captures (1) the fact that the rime duration of this

class of words is longer than that of the High tone class as the rising contour requires a longer duration to

implement (Zhang 2002), and (2) the lack of difference in the F0 peak values of this class from the High

tone class (Chang 2007). Second, the R tone description better matches the tone system of Middle Korean

(fifteenth century). The words in the monosyllabic R and disyllabic LH classes used to be in the R and RL

classes in Middle Korean, respectively (Ramsey 1975; Kenstowicz et al. 2008). Therefore, using the R

tone description allows us to directly indicate the different historical development of the pitch system

between the South and North Kyungsang dialects of Korean and thus allows us to be in a better position to

trace the historical changes of the Kyungsang accent system.

72 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

Comparisons of our analysis with other approaches, directions for future research, and

other concluding remarks are provided at the end.

1.1 Descriptions of tonal patterns in South Kyungsang Korean

In monosyllabic words, South Kyungsang Korean has pitch accent minimal pairs

such as nwún (H) ‘eye’ versus nwǔn (R) ‘snow’ and mál (H) ‘horse’ versus mǎl (R)‘speech’ (Ramsey 1975; Kenstowicz and Park 2006; Kenstowicz et al. 2008; Chang

2007). The behavior of monosyllabic noun roots under suffixation indicates that

there are in fact two different types of H accents (Ramsey 1975; Kim and Schuh

2006; Schuh and Kim 2007; Chang 2007). For example, although both nwún ‘eye’

and mún ‘door’ have an H pitch in isolation, when the suffix -i (nominative case

marker) is added, the pitch pattern for ‘eye’ is nwún-í (H-H) while the pitch pattern

for ‘door’ is mún-ì (H-L). In addition, when expanded with the disyllabic suffix

-mankhum ‘as much as’, the pitch patterns are nwún-mánkhùm (H-HL) and mùn-mánkhùm (L-HL). Finally, when suffixed with -imyen ‘if’, the pitch patterns are

nwún-ímyèn (H-HL) and mún-ìmyèn (H-LL). We tentatively write the two different

H accents as H1 and H2. There is a consistent pitch pattern for the R accent under

suffixation: the suffix will take on the H tone while the root syllable takes an L tone.

Table 1 summarizes the pitch patterns for H1, H2, and R on monosyllabic nouns

under different types of suffixation.

For disyllabic nouns, we have already seen in (1) that South Kyungsang Korean

has three pitch patterns: HL, HH, and LH. But expanding the nouns with suffixes

indicates that there are in fact two LH classes. For example, although both sàlám‘person’ and pàlám ‘wind’ have an LH pitch pattern in isolation, they pattern

differently when suffixed: when the suffix -i (nominative case marker) is added,

‘person’ patterns as sàlám-í (LH-H) while ‘wind’ patterns as pàlám-ì (LH-L);

when the suffix -imyen ‘if’ is added, ‘person’ patterns as sàlám-ímyèn (LH-HL)

Table 1 Pitch patterns for H1, H2, and R in monosyllabic nouns under suffixation. Data were adapted

from Kim and Schuh (2006) and Chang (2007)

H1 H2

nwun H ‘eye’ mun H ‘door’

nwun-ı H-H ‘eye (nom.)’ mun-ı H-L ‘door (nom.)’

nwun-mankhum H-HL ‘as much as eye’ mun-mankhum L-HL ‘as much as door’

nwun-ımyen H-HL ‘if eye’ mun-ımyen H-LL ‘if door’

R

nwun R ‘snow’

nwun-ı L-H ‘snow (nom.)’

nwun-mankhum L-HH ‘as much as snow’

nwun-ımyen L-HH ‘if snow’

Pitch accent of South Kyungsang Korean 73

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while ‘wind’ patterns as pàlám-ìmyèn (LH-LL). We tentatively label the two

accents as LH1 and LH2, respectively. The HL and HH accents have consistent

behavior under suffixation: the suffixed syllables will take an L tone while the HL

and HH tones remain on the root. The pitch patterns for HL, HH, LH1, and LH2

on disyllabic noun roots under different types of suffixation are summarized in

Table 2.

We can observe the following parallels between the monosyllabic and disyllabic

pitch patterns. (1) H1 in monosyllables and HH in disyllables behave in parallel in

having an H tone on the first and second syllables if there is a second syllable

available. (2) R in monosyllables and LH1 in disyllables behave in parallel in

having an H tone on the second and third syllables if they are available; otherwise

the H docks to the right edge of the monosyllable to create a rising tone. (3) Unlike

the H1/HH and R/LH1 tone classes that have a consistent pitch pattern regardless of

the suffix, the H2 and LH2 classes both have different pitch patterns depending on

the suffix. When the words in these tone classes are suffixed with -mankhum ‘as

much as’, the H tone always occurs on the first syllable of the suffix; but when they

are suffixed with -i (nom.) or -imyen ‘if’, the H tone occurs on the last syllable of the

root, and the rest of the syllables take an L tone. These parallels are summarized in

Table 3. They seem to indicate that, descriptively, there are four different pitch

patterns in South Kyungsang Korean nouns: HL, which only surfaces on disyllabic

roots, H1/HH, R/LH1, and H2/LH2. An additional reason for the parallel between R

in monosyllables and LH1 in disyllables is that the LH1 class was also derived from

the rising pitch accent in Middle Korean (Ramsey 1975; Kenstowicz and Park 2006;

Kenstowicz et al. 2008). The accent patterns of trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic nouns

will be discussed in Sect. 5 after our formal analysis for the nominal pitch accent

pattern is proposed.

Table 2 Pitch patterns for HL, HH, LH1 and LH2 in disyllabic nouns under suffixation. Data were

adapted from Kim and Schuh (2006) and Chang (2007)

HL HH

kewul HL ‘mirror’ kunul HH ‘shade’

kewul-ı HL-L ‘mirror (nom.)’ kunul-ı HH-L ‘shade (nom.)’

kewul-mankhum HL-LL ‘as much as mirror’ kunul-mankhum HH-LL ‘as much as shade’

kewul-ımyen HL-LL ‘if mirror’ kunul-ımyen HH-LL ‘if shade’

LH1 LH2

salam LH ‘person’ palam LH ‘wind’

salam-ı LH-H ‘person (nom.)’ palam-ı LH-L ‘wind (nom.)’

salam-mankhum LH-HL ‘as much as person’ palam-mankhum LH-HL ‘as much as wind’

salam-ımyen LH-HL ‘if person’ palam-ımyen LH-LL ‘if wind’

74 H. Lee, J. Zhang

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1.2 Problems posed by suffixes for H2/LH2

As noted above, the pitch pattern for words in the H2 and LH2 classes varies

depending on the type of suffix added to the root: disyllabic suffixes -mankhum and

-imyen elicit different pitch patterns on these nouns. Based on her preliminary

phonetic examination, Chang (2007) made the generalization that the tone pattern

difference is determined by whether the disyllabic suffix is vowel-initial or

consonant-initial. Specifically, when a monosyllabic word in the H2 class (analyzed

as an M-class by Chang) is followed by a monosyllabic or vowel-initial disyllabic

suffix such as -i (nom.), -to ‘also’, -un (topic), or -imyen ‘if’, the H tone is placed only

in the root. However, when a word in this class is followed by a consonant-initial

suffix such as -pota ‘than’, the H tone occurs on the first syllable of the suffix but not

on the root, and the rest of the syllables take L tones: mún-ìmyèn (H-LL) versus mùn-pótà (L-HL). Likewise, when a word in the disyllabic LH2 class (analyzed as an LM-

class by Chang) is followed by a monosyllabic or vowel-initial disyllabic suffix, the H

tone occurs only in the root but not in the suffix. But when the word is followed by a

consonant-initial disyllabic suffix, the H tone occurs in the suffix: pàlám-ìmyèn (LH-LL) versus pàlám-pótà (LH-HL). This suffix-determined tonal pattern led Chang

(2007) to control the suffix type in her phonetic study by including only monosyllabic

and vowel-initial disyllabic suffixes but not consonant-initial disyllabic suffixes.

Schuh and Kim (2007, pp. 16–17), on the other hand, argued that “Particles bear

H only when they are associated with H that is part of a lexical tone pattern.

Otherwise, particles bear L tone.” This means that H tones in suffixes must come

from underlying H tone specifications. In other words, the different pitch patterns

between the vowel-initial suffix -imyen ‘if’ and the consonant-initial suffix -pota‘than’ discussed in Chang (2007) should come from the difference in their

underlying pitch accent, not from the difference in initial segment type. This is

evidenced by the fact that a consonant-initial disyllabic suffix -tul-i (pl. nom.)

induces the H-LL pattern on monosyllabic nouns just like vowel-initial suffixes

Table 3 Parallels in pitch patterns between monosyllabic and disyllabic nouns

Monosyllables H1 R H2

Isolation H R H

Mono_suffix: -i H-H L-H H-L

Di_suffix: -mankhum H-HL L-HH L-HL

Di_suffix: -imyen H-HL L-HH H-LL

Disyllables HL HH LH1 LH2

Isolation HL HH LH LH

Mono_suffix: -i HL-L HH-L LH-H LH-L

Di_suffix: -mankhum HL-LL HH-LL LH-HL LH-HL

Di_suffix: -imyen HL-LL HH-LL LH-HL LH-LL


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while -mankhum induces L-HL. The implication, then, is that -mankhum and -tul-ibelong to two different underlying pitch accent classes.

The exact role of the suffix in the nominal pitch pattern of South Kyungsang,

therefore, is controversial. We believe that the clarification of the following two

issues can benefit its understanding. First, many Korean suffixes have allomorphs that

differ in the initial segment. For example, the topic marker is -un following a

consonant-final stem but -nun following a vowel-final stem; the suffix meaning ‘if’ is

-imyen or -lamyen2, also depending on whether the final segment of the stem it

attaches to is a consonant or a vowel. If the nominal pitch pattern is indeed determined

by the initial segment of the suffix, we would expect different pitch patterns when

different allomorphs are selected. But if the pitch pattern difference comes from the

pitch accent of the suffix, then we would not expect the allomorphy to influence the

tones. Second, we recognize that the disyllabic suffix -tul-i used in Schuh and Kim’s

(2007) study is in fact a combination of two monosyllabic suffixes. The question,

then, is whether there is indeed a contrast in disyllabic suffixes in their underlying

pitch accent. We aim to clarify these two issues in our own study.

1.3 Goals of the current study

The current study broadly aims to understand the underlying pitch accent system in

South Kyungsang Korean nouns with different types of suffixes. To this end, we first

conducted an acoustic study with four male South Kyungsang speakers by recording

monosyllabic and disyllabic nouns with various types of suffixes. Although

acoustics studies of tone in South Kyungsang Korean already exist (Chang 2007;

Lee 2008; Kim and Jun 2009), they did not focus on the tone patterns under

different types of suffixes as their research goals were to clarify the tonal

descriptions (Chang 2007), determine the location of the main accent (Lee 2008),

and examine the interaction between lexical tone and focus prosody (Kim and Jun

2009). Our acoustic study will provide a full picture of the nominal tonal patterns of

South Kyungsang Korean. In addition, it will also address Chang (2007)’s

assumption about the tonal variations conditioned by the initial segment of suffixes

and therefore resolve the controversy regarding the behavior of the suffixes. We also

paid attention to potential variations in the tonal patterns to see whether any

disagreements in earlier descriptions are due to such variations and whether any

systematicity emerges in the variations. Based on the acoustic results, we then

provide a formal analysis couched in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky

1993/2004) for the nominal pitch accent system of the language and see how the

analysis works in longer nouns. We compare it with theoretical alternatives

(Ramsey 1975; Kenstowicz and Sohn 1997; Kim 1997; Schuh and Kim 2007; Lee

2008; Lee and Davis 2009) and see how the system fits in with our current

understanding of the typology of culminative tone systems (Evans 2009).

2 We would like to comment that -imyen is allomorphic with -myen, and -lamyen is allomorphic with

-ilamyen. The suffixes -imyen/-myen and -lamyen/-ilamyen have the same lexical meaning, ‘if’. Since each

of the allomorphs differs in their number of syllables, we selected the disyllabic suffix -imyen/-lamyen andtreated them as if they are allomorphs to test the relevance of the initial segment of the suffix to the

surface tone pattern.

76 H. Lee, J. Zhang

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2 Acoustic study

2.1 Methods

2.1.1 Speech materials

Our acoustic experiment recordedmonosyllabic and disyllabic nouns in different tone

classes as reported in earlier literature. The recording included nouns both in isolation

and with various types of suffixes. There were seven conditions for tone classes: three

for monosyllabic nouns (H1, H2, R) and four for disyllabic nouns (HH, HL, LH1,

LH2). For each monosyllabic tone class, we recorded five words, and for each

disyllabic tone class, we recorded ten words. These words are given in Tables 4 and 5.

In order to test the issues regarding suffixes, the following factors were considered

in the experiment: (1) the number of syllables in the suffix (monosyllabic or

disyllabic); (2) the initial segment of the suffix (vowel-initial or consonant-initial); and

(3) whether the suffix has allomorphs that differ in the initial segment. Table 6

summarizes the suffix conditions in the experiment. The monosyllabic suffix -to and

disyllabic suffix -pota do not have phonologically conditioned allomorphs. But the

monosyllabic suffix -un/-nun and disyllabic suffix -imyen/-lamyen have allomorphs

that are either vowel- or consonant-initial, and the allomorphy is determined by the last

segment of the noun root: a consonant-final noun takes the vowel-initial suffix

allomorph; a vowel-final noun takes the consonant-initial suffix allomorph.

With fifteenmonosyllabic and forty disyllabic nouns, eachwith five suffix conditions

(including isolation), we recorded 275 word tokens in total from each speaker.

2.1.2 Speakers

Four male speakers of South Kyungsang Korean participated in the study. Their age

ranged from 27 to 67 years old (mean = 40, s.d. = 18). All speakers had lived and

gone through primary and secondary education in the South Kyungsang region with

parents who spoke the same target dialect for at least 20 years; three of them were

from Pusan city, and one of them was from Masan city. Three speakers were

graduate or undergraduate students at the University of Kansas; the 67-year-old

speaker was a short-term visitor to the U.S. None of the speakers reported any

speech or hearing disorders, and all of the speakers were literate in Korean.

Table 4 Monosyllabic nouns used in the acoustic experiment

H1 R H2

mul ‘water’ mal ‘speech’ mal ‘horse’

nwun ‘eye’ nwun ‘snow’ mun ‘door’

pam ‘night’ pam ‘chestnut’ pi ‘tomb stone’

pi ‘rain’ tol ‘stone’ swul ‘alcohol’

son ‘hand’ ton ‘money’ son ‘guest’


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2.1.3 Procedure

All four speakers were recorded in an anechoic chamber in the Phonetics and

Psycholinguistics Laboratory at the University of Kansas using a cardioid

microphone (Electrovoice-RE 20) and a solid state recorder (Marantz PMD 671).

The test words were randomized and presented to each speaker in standard Korean

orthography on a computer monitor using PowerPoint with a four-second inter-trial

interval. The speakers read each word once without repetition. Along with the

orthography, pictures were provided for the speakers to help distinguish segmental

homonyms in the orthography. For example, pictures of an eye and of snow were

used to distinguish nwun (H1) ‘eye’ and nwun (R) ‘snow’, both of which are written

as 눈 in Korean orthography. The stimuli were recorded at a sampling rate of

22,050 Hz and analyzed using Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2005).

2.1.4 Measurements

In order to locate theHpeak(s) in the testwords, the F0 peak valuewasmeasured for all

1,100 recorded tokens. Themeasurements of the F0 peak are described in Fig. 1, which

shows the measurements in Praat for the words nwun (H1)-pota ‘than eyes’ and nwun(R)-pota ‘than snow.’ In Fig. 1, the first, second, and third syllables are indicated as σ1,

Table 5 Disyllabic nouns used in the acoustic experiment

HL HH LH1 LH2

anay ‘wife’ ceksam ‘jacket’ angay ‘fog’ kamca ‘potato’

cangsik ‘decoration’ hinsayk ‘white’ imca ‘owner’ mati ‘joint’

kewul ‘mirror’ kulim ‘painting’ nongtam ‘joke’ menci ‘dust’

koli ‘ring’ kwulum ‘cloud’ papo ‘fool’ namu ‘tree’

kutay ‘thou’ moki ‘mosquito’ paychwu ‘cabbage’ palam ‘wind’

kwuli ‘copper’ mole ‘the day after

tomorrow’

popay ‘treasure’ namul ‘wild

vegetable’

meli ‘head’ nalgay ‘wing’ samul ‘object’ poli ‘barley’

mole ‘sand’ phali ‘fly’ salam ‘person’ sokum ‘salt’

napi ‘butterfly’ phwulmu ‘bellows’ tampe ‘cigarette’ tali ‘bridge’

yelum ‘summer’ swukcu ‘bean sprout’ wusan ‘umbrella’ elgwul ‘face’

Table 6 Suffix conditions in the acoustic experiment

Word in isolation

Monosyllabic suffix word + -to ‘also’ No distinct allomorphs

word + -un/-nun (topic marker) V- or C-initial allomorphs

Disyllabic suffix word + -pota ‘than’ No distinct allomorphs

word + -imyen/-lamyen ‘if’ V- or C-initial allomorphs

78 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

σ2, and σ3, respectively; F0 Peak 1 indicates the point of the first F0 maximum, and F0Peak 2 indicates the point of the second F0 maximum. The F0 maximum values

between F0 Peak 1 and F0 Peak 2 are comparable. With these F0 peak measurements,

we adopted the following simple criterion to decide whether a particular syllable has

an H tone. For example, if there was an observable F0 maximum before the end of the

first syllable and another F0 maximum before the end of the second syllable, both the

first and the second syllables were analyzed as carrying an H tone, as in nwun (H1)

-pota in Fig. 1; if there was an observable F0 maximum before the end of the second

syllable and a second maximum before the end of the third syllable, both the second

and the third syllable were analyzed as carrying an H tone, as shown in nwun (R)-pota.This procedure was used for all 1,100 tokens to determine their pitch patterns.

2.2 Results3

2.2.1 Dominant accent pattern

Our data from the four speakers provide general support for the nominal pitch

patterns in South Kyungsang Korean previously reported in the literature. In

nwun (H1)-pota nwun (R)-pota

1 2 3 1 2 3

F0 Peak1 1kaeP0F2kaeP0F F0 Peak2

Fig. 1 F0 peaks for the test words nwun (H1)-pota (left) and nwun (R)-pota (right). Solid-line arrowsindicate the point where the F0 shows the first local maximum; dashed-line arrows indicate the pointwhere F0 shows the second local maximum

3 There were lexical anomalies for five nouns: the LH1 word paychwu ‘cabbage’ with a monosyllabic

suffix had an LH-L pattern instead of LH-H by Speakers 1 and 4; ceksam ‘jacket’ in the HH group was

pronounced as an LH2 word for Speaker 4; the H2 nouns pi ‘tomb stone’ and son ‘guest’ patterned like

the H1 class for Speaker 2; pi ‘tomb stone’, mal ‘horse’, and son ‘guest’ from the H2 class were in either

the H1 or the R class for Speaker 3.


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particular, Speaker 2’s pitch patterns are in line with earlier reports with few

exceptions. Thus, we first report the accent patterns for Speaker 2 and then discuss

variations observed both between and within speakers in the following section. The

F0 tracings for Speaker 2’s pitch patterns under suffixation are provided in

Appendix 1.

Speaker 2 (32 years old, Pusan) behaved identically to the previously reported

patterns in Table 3 except for the monosyllabic word mal ‘horse’ (H2). The word

mal ‘horse’ (H2) behaved like an H2 word under disyllabic suffixation but like an R

word under monosyllabic suffixation (L-H instead of the expected H-L). With the

exception of this word, Speaker 2’s pitch patterns are exactly in line with the earlier

reports given in Table 3.

Our acoustic data confirm that the neutralized H1-H2 and LH1-LH2 in isolation

pattern differently when suffixes are added, implying separate underlying tone

classifications for these stem classes. In addition, there is a parallel between H1 and

HH, R and LH1, and H2 and LH2. For H1/HH, High tones occur on the first and the

second available syllables for these stem classes; for R/LH1, two high tones occur on

the second and the available third syllables. For H2/LH2, different tonal patterns

emerge under different suffix types. An H tone occurs only in the root with -imyen/-lamyen for both monosyllabic and disyllabic nouns, consistent with the monosyllabic

suffix -to and -un/-nun.AnH tone in the root with the disyllabic suffix -imyenwas alsoobserved by Chang (2007). With the suffix -pota, on the other hand, an H tone always

occurs on the first syllable of the suffix, and there is noH tone in themonosyllabic root.

These pitch patterns in the H2 and LH2 classes indicate that the differences in pitch

patterns are not caused by the initial segment of the suffix, contra Chang (2007), as the

V-initial versus C-initial suffix allomorphy invariably did not have any effect on the

surface tones for any of our speakers. Given that we used two truly disyllabic suffixes, -pota and -imyen/-lamyen, our results lend further support to Schuh and Kim’s (2007)

suggestion that the suffixed-induced pitch differences are caused by different

underlying pitch accents on the suffixes.4We, however, are not in a position to address

the question of whether all pitch accents can appear in a suffix or whether

monosyllabic suffixes can also bear pitch accents. These will require further testing of

additional suffixes, and we leave them open as topics for future research.

2.2.2 Inter- and intra-speaker variation

While the four speakers generally agree with the accent pattern for the HL and HH/

H1 classes, Speakers 1, 3, and 4 show accent variations for the R/LH1 and H2/LH2

accent classes. The three speakers’ accent patterns for R/LH1 and H2/LH2 are

summarized in Table 7, and their tonal variations are indicated in bold.

For Speaker 1 (35 years old, Pusan), the variations were mostly observed in

monosyllabic R and disyllabic LH2 words. For the monosyllabic R class with the

4 Through his or her own elicitation with a Kyungsang consultant, one of our reviewers noted the

discrepancy between C-initial and V-initial suffixes in that C-initial suffixes tend to carry a high tone

while V-initial suffixes do not, indicating that Chang (2007)’s generalization may be valid. We do not

have an explanation for the imbalance in the suffixal tones. The possibility of the initial segment-induced

tonal allomorphy suggested by such an imbalance still requires further investigation.

80 H. Lee, J. Zhang

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suffix -pota, Speaker 1 primarily showed L-HL (80%) while the reported pattern is

L-HH (20%). For the disyllabic LH2 class with the disyllabic suffix -imyen/-lamyen,Speaker 1 showed variation between LH-LL (the reported pattern, 40%) and LH-HL

(60%). These deviations from the reported patterns seem to indicate that Speaker 1

has a weakened contrast between the R/LH1 and H2/LH2 accents as the deviations

wipe out a pitch difference between these two tone classes. When the monosyllabic

R class is followed by the disyllabic suffix -imyen/-lamyen, there was one word that

showed L-HL instead of the expected L-HH (20% of the data for this class).

For Speaker 3 (27 years old, Masan5), the monosyllabic R class with disyllabic

suffixation, both -pota and -imyen/-lamyen showed an L-HL variant with a

frequency of 40% (in lieu of the expected L-HH), and for the disyllabic LH2 class

with suffix -imyen/-lamyen, the attested pattern was LH-HL instead of the expected

LH-LL. Although it is tempting to conclude that these patterns also indicate a

weakened contrast between R/LH1 and H2/LH2, we noticed that while L-HL is the

pitch pattern for the H2 class for the -pota suffix, it is not for the -imyen/-lamyensuffix, which should be H-LL. This, therefore, may indicate instead a weakened

contrast between the two suffixes.

The pitch patterns for Speaker 4 (67 years old, Pusan) also indicate a weakened

contrast between the two disyllabic suffixes. For the monosyllabic H2 class with the

suffix -pota, three words showed the expected L-HL, while the other two showed

H-LL—the pattern for the -imyen/-lamyen suffix. In addition, for the LH2 tone class,all disyllabic suffixes showed LH-LL, and there was no LH-HL pattern even with

the suffix -pota.Overall, we observed two general types of variations among the three South

Kyungsang speakers. One is the tendency for the R/LH1 and H2/LH2 classes to be

Table 7 Pitch patterns of R/LH1 and H2/LH2 for Speaker 1, 3, and 4. The tonal variations are indicated

in bold

Monosyllables R H2

Isolation R H

Mono_suffix: -to, -un/-nun L-H H-L

Di_suffix: -pota L-HH L-HL L-HL H-LL

Di_suffix: -imyen/-lamyen L-HH L-HL H-LL

Disyllables LH1 LH2

Isolation LH LH

Mono_suffix: -to, -un/-nun LH-H LH-L LH-L

Di_suffix: -pota LH-HL LH-HL LH-LL

Di_suffix: -imyen/-lamyen LH-HL LH-LL LH-HL

5 While the other three speakers are from Pusan city, Speaker 3 is from Masan, a city in the South

Kyungsang region. However, the reported accent pattern for the Masan dialect of Korean is identical with

that for Pusan (Utsugi 2009). Therefore, we do not expect that the tonal variation for Speaker 3 is due to

the geographical variation.


123

merged (Speaker 1), and the other is for the difference between the two types of

disyllabic suffixes to disappear (Speakers 3 and 4). In the following section, we

provide a formal analysis for our Speaker 2’s pitch patterns, which showed the least

variation and agreed with the patterns previously reported. We then discuss possible

ways in which analyses for other speakers’ systems can be built upon Speaker 2’s

analysis and compare our analysis with other formal approaches.

3 Analysis

3.1 Observations

From the pitch patterns for Speaker 2, summarized in Table 8 (except formal ‘horse’),we canmake the following observations. For the disyllabic HL class, the H tone always

occurs on the initial syllable of the root only, and the rest of the syllables take L tones.

Two interpretations are consistent with this observation: an H tone occurs on the initial

or the penultimate syllable of the root.Weopt for the penultimate-syllable interpretation

for the following three reasons. First, it provides an account for why this tone class is

missing in the monosyllables: a penult is simply not available in monosyllabic roots.

The initial-syllable interpretation, on the other hand, cannot explain the absence of this

tone class in monosyllables. Second, there are trisyllabic words with an LHL pattern in

South Kyungsang Korean, such as mìnálì ‘parsley.’ These words can be easily

accommodated in the HL class if the H tone occurs on the penultimate instead of the

initial syllable. Finally, in a cross-linguistic typology of culminative tone systems,

Evans (2009) proposed that there are two types of culminative tones: one that spreads

and one that does not spread.According to Evans (2009), tones in spreading systems are

typically left-aligned with respect to the relevant domain (e.g., Qiangic languages of

Sichuan), and spreading proceeds rightward while tones in non-spreading systems are

typically right-aligned (e.g., Jiarongic languages of Sichuan). In other words, there is a

directional asymmetry between the two types of tones: the spreading tones usually count

from the left edge of the word, and the non-spreading tones count from the right. This is

consistentwith both the phonetic observation that (1) tonal coarticulatory assimilation is

primarily progressive (e.g., Gandour et al. 1994; Peng 1997; Xu 1997) and (2) the

typological asymmetry in tone sandhi systems that left-dominant sandhi (sandhi that

preserves the leftmost tone) usually involves rightward spreading whereas right-

dominant sandhi (sandhi that preserves the rightmost tone) usually involves contour

reduction and neutralization onnonfinal syllables, not leftward spreading (Zhang2007).

Given that the H tone here does not spread, it is more likely that it counts from the right

according to Evans’s typology.

For the H1 class in monosyllables and HH class in disyllables, we can see that the

H tone always docks to the leftmost syllable and is associated with two syllables

whenever a second syllable is available. It therefore appears that the accent is an H

tone associated with the initial syllable and that it spreads one syllable to the right.

For the R/LH1 class, the H tone always occurs on the peninitial syllable and is also

associated to the following syllable whenever one is available. The only exception is

for monosyllabic nouns without suffixation, where the H is at the right edge of the

82 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

syllable and creates a rising contour. A possible restatement of the generalization that

will capture the monosyllabic behavior is that the H tone occurs on the secondmora ofthe root and spreads one mora rightward, where the mora is equivalent to the syllable

everywhere except for the monosyllables, which are lengthened to two moras on the

surface. This lengthening is supported by the phonetic data inKenstowicz et al. (2008),

which showed that the word tǒn ‘money’ in the R class had a rime duration of 342 ms

while the words són ‘hand’ (H1) and són ‘guest’ (H2) had a rime duration of 212 ms

and 200 ms, respectively. Our own data support the lengthening as well: the average

rime durations across the four speakers for tǒn ‘money’, són ‘hand’, and són ‘guest’ are368 ms (s.d.= 16), 253 ms (s.d.= 36), and 267ms (s.d.= 26), respectively, and those

for nwǔn ‘snow’ (R), nwún ‘eye’ (H1), and mún ‘door’ (H2) are 397 ms (s.d. = 39),

284ms (s.d.= 14), and 303ms (s.d.= 29), respectively. This interpretation also finds a

historical correspondence: the Middle Korean Rising pitch first developed into

allophonic vowel length, which then became contrastive upon the loss of the initial

Low tone inNorthKyungsang (Ramsey 1975;Kenstowicz and Park 2006;Kenstowicz

et al. 2008). Finally, the initial-H and peninitial-H analysis for H1/HH and R/LH1

classes fits inwith the tone typology in Evans (2009) in that accents that count from the

left have a spreading property.

No clear generalization emerged for the docking of H tones for the H2/LH2 class.

Moreover, this is the only class for which disyllabic suffixes -pota and -imyen/-lamyen induce different pitch patterns. These point to the possibility that this class isunderlyingly toneless (Schuh and Kim 2007), and its surface pitch patterns are

determined by the interaction of a set of markedness generalizations (to be proposed in

Sect. 3.3) and the accent of the suffixes. Regarding the tone patterns for the suffixes, we

see that -pota always appears with an HL pattern, while -imyen/-lamyen appears withLL for this class ofwords, indicating that -pota has the same underlying pitch accent as

an HL-class word while -imyen/-lamyen does not come with any tonal specification.

When these suffixes are attached to nounswith their ownpitch accents, the pitch accent

of the suffix is unrealized, and the pitch pattern of the word is entirely determined by

the pitch accent of the noun. This is indicated by the fact -pota and -imyen/-lamyen

Table 8 Pitch patterns for Speaker 2 (except for mal ‘horse’)

Monosyllables H1 R H2

Isolation H R H

Mono_suffix: -to, -un/-nun H-H L-H H-L

Di_suffix: -pota H-HL L-HH L-HL

Di_suffix: -imyen/-lamyen H-HL L-HH H-LL

Disyllables HL HH LH1 LH2

Isolation HL HH LH LH

Mono_suffix: -to, -un/-nun HL-L HH-L LH-H LH-L

Di_suffix: -pota H-LL HH-LL LH-HL LH-HL

Di_suffix: -imyen/-lamyen HL-LL HH-LL LH-HL LH-LL


123

induce exactly the same pitch behavior in the other tone classes. Any H tone on the

suffix is then the result of spreading from an H tone in the root.

Our formal analysis in the next section is built upon these observations. We first

propose the underlying representations for the pitch accents and then propose the

necessary constraints to capture the observations made here. Analyses in tableau

form for each tone class are then provided.

3.2 Underlying pitch accents for South Kyungsang Korean nouns

According to the discussion in Sect. 3.1, we propose the following underlying

representations for the pitch accents in South KyungsangKorean nouns, as summarized

in Table 9. All pitch accents are marked by a culminative H tone, and the underlying

representation specifies two properties of the H: the location of prelinking and whether

theH spreads.The location is defined in terms of the number ofmoras fromeither the left

or the right edge of the root. But as previously discussed, moras are equivalent to the

syllables except formonosyllabicwordswith a rising tone. The spreading is restricted to

the rightward direction, and the span of the spread is restricted to two moras. In the

representation, the spread tone ismarked asH+. In the analysis, the entire tone pattern of

the word becomes predictable oncewe know the underlying tone and its location; this is

the sense in which our analysis is a pitch accent analysis.

In our analysis, the HL class has an H tone pre-linked to the penultimate mora, and

the H tone does not spread. The H1/HH class has an H tone pre-linked to the initial

mora that spreads one mora to the right. The R/LH1 class has an H tone pre-linked to

the peninitial mora that also spreads one mora to the right. The H2/LH2 class has no

H tone specification and is therefore toneless. The surface pitch patterns for the

words in this toneless class are derived by interaction of markedness constraints and

the underlying tone in the suffixes. The suffix -pota belongs to the HL class and thus

has a pre-linked local H on the penultimate mora. We will write this suffix as -pótafrom now on. Suffixes -to, -un/-nun, and -imyen/-lamyen, however, are toneless.

3.3 Constraints

Let us first consider the constraints necessary to derive the surface pitch patterns for

the three pitch accent classes.

First of all, the surface patterns always preserve the underlying H tones in the root in

their original location, and the spreading property of the H+ is always respected. This

indicates the necessity of the constraints in (4)-(7). Clearly, MAX-ROOT(H), MAX-ROOT

(Assoc), andSPREAD(H+) are undominated, andDEP(Assoc) is outranked bySPREAD(H+).

(4) MAX-ROOT(H): An H tone in the input of a root must have a corresponding

H tone in the output.

(5) MAX-ROOT(Assoc): An association line in the input of a root must have a

corresponding association line in the output.

(6) SPREAD(H+): An H+ tone must be associated with the mora following the

mora it is associated with in the input if such a mora is available.

84 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

(7) DEP(Assoc): An association line in the output must have a corresponding

association line in the input.

We must also capture the fact that when both the root and the suffix have a pitch

accent, only the root accent is preserved, and the suffix accent is deleted. This can

be captured by the high ranking of the CULMINATIVITY constraint, defined in (8),

along with ranking the MAX-ROOT constraints in (4) and (5) over the MAX-SUFFIX

constraints, defined in (9) and (10) (cf. Root Faithfulness in Beckman 1998).

(8) CULMINATIVITY: Only one H tone representation can be realized per word

in the output.

(9) MAX-SUFFIX(H): An H tone in the input of a suffix must have a

corresponding H tone in the output.

(10) MAX-SUFFIX(Assoc): An association line in the input of a suffix must have a

corresponding association line in the output.

When the noun belongs to the toneless class (H2/LH2), we can divide the data up

into two situations. First, when neither the noun root nor the suffix has a pitch accent,

the surface pattern has an H tone that docks onto the root for monosyllabic roots and

onto the second syllable of the root for disyllabic roots. The presence of the H tone can

be derived by restating the CULMINATIVITY constraint in (8) as in (11) and ranking it

higher than DEP(H), defined in (12), and DEP(Assoc) in (7). To derive the H tone

docking site, we need the markedness constraints in (13) and (14). *SUFFIX-H will

prefer candidates in which the H is inserted in the root, and *INITIAL-H will prefer

candidates inwhich theH is not inserted on the first mora. Both of these constraints are

outranked by allMAX(H) andMAX(Assoc) constraints aswell as bySPREAD(H+),which

Table 9 Underlying representations (UR) for the pitch accents in South Kyungsang Korean nouns

Tone class Location of UR H tone Spread UR Examples

Mono Di

HL Pre-linked H on penult No H|µµ #

mólè ‘sand’

H1 HH Pre-linked H on initial Yes H+

|#µ

nwún ‘eye’

mólé ‘the day after tomorrow’

R LH1 Pre-linked H on peninitial Yes H+

|#µµ

nwǔn ‘snow’

sàlám ‘person’

H2 LH2 Toneless __ __ mún ‘door’

pàlám ‘wind’


123

protect underlying H tones’ pre-linking and spreading properties, and by *SUFFIX-

H » *INITIAL-H, which allows the inserted H to dock onto monosyllabic noun roots.

(11) CULMINATIVITY (restatement): Each word must realize exactly one H tone

representation.

(12) DEP(H): An H tone in the output must have a corresponding association in

the input.

(13) *SUFFIX-H: No H tone can be associated to any syllables in the suffix.

(14) *INITIAL-H: The first mora of a word cannot be associated with an H tone.

The second situation is when the root is toneless, but the suffix is -póta, whichhas a pre-linked H tone on the first syllable. The L-HL pattern when the root is

monosyllabic can be easily derived by the constraints and their rankings proposed so

far, but the LH-HL pattern when the root is disyllabic requires an additional

markedness constraint, defined in (15): a highly ranked *#LL will force the H on the

suffix to spread leftward onto the final root syllable. Notice that the L in the

constraint is shorthand for the lack of an H tone specification.

(15) *#LL: A phonological word cannot begin with two syllables, neither

of which has an H tone.

Our discussion so far has led to the following ranking among the proposed

constraints:

We illustrate this analysis in tableau form with commentary for all the tone

classes in the next section.

(16) Constraint ranking:

MAX-ROOT(H), MAX-ROOT(Assoc), SPREAD(H+), CULMINATIVITY, *#LL

|

MAX-SUFFIX(H), MAX-SUFFIX(Assoc), DEP(H), DEP(Assoc)

|

*SUFFIX-H

|

*INITIAL-H

86 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

3.4 Tableaux

We start with the HL class in disyllabic nouns, which we have proposed to

have a pre-linked H tone on the penultimate mora that does not spread. The

analyses for the word móle ‘sand’ with disyllabic suffixes -lamyen (toneless)

and -póta (also pre-linked H on the penult that does not spread) are given in

(17) and (18), respectively. For (17), the winner (a) keeps the H tone on the

syllable from which it originates; spreading the H to the right (b) violates DEP

(Assoc) unnecessarily; moving the H to the following syllable to satisfy

*INITIAL-H (c) violates both MAX-ROOT(Assoc) and DEP(Assoc) and is thus too

costly; removing the H (d) violates all undominated constraints in the tableau.

For (18), the winner (a) preserves only the underlying H from the root as

preserving both the root and suffix Hs (b) violates the undominated

CULMINATIVITY, and preserving only the suffix H (c-d) violates highly ranked

root faithfulness constraints.

(17) Input: H | /mole-lamyen/ ‘if sand’ MAX-

RT(H) MAX-

RT(Assoc) CULMINAT *#LL DEP(Assoc) *INIT-H

H |

a. mole-lamyen

*

H | b. mole-lamyen

*! *

H | c. mole-lamyen

*! *

d. mole-lamyen *! * * *

(18) Input: H H | | /mole-pota/ ‘than sand’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

CULMI

NAT

*#LL MAX-SUF(H)

MAX-SUF(A)

*SUF-H

*INIT-H

H |

a. mole-pota

* * *

H H | | b. mole-pota

*! * *

H |

c. mole-pota

*! * * *

H | d. mole-pota

*! * *


123

For the H1/HH class, which has a spread H+ pre-linked to the initial mora of the root

according to our proposal, we derive a monosyllabic root followed by the two disyllabic

suffixes -imyen/-lamyen (toneless) and -póta here. For themonosyllabic noun nwún ‘eye’,when it is followedbya toneless suffix -imyenas in (19), thewinner (a)preserves theH+on

nwun and also spreads the H+ onto the following syllable. Not spreading the H+ (b)

violates theundominatedSPREAD-H+, and spreading theH+but dislodging theoriginalH+

linking to avoid an initial H (c) violates the undominatedMAX-ROOT(Assoc).When nwún‘eye’ is followed by a toned suffix -póta as in (20), the winner (a) spreads the H+ onto the

following syllable and deletes the H tone on the suffix. Preserving both Hs (b) violates

CULMINATIVITY as well as SPREAD-H+, and preserving only the H+ but not spreading it (c)

violates SPREAD-H+. Preserving the H on the suffix only (d) violates undominated root

faithfulness constraints. For a disyllabic noun, the analysis is virtually identical: thewinner

spreads theH+ to the second syllable of the noun regardless of the suffix to satisfy SPREAD-

H+, and the suffix H is always deleted to satisfy CULMINATIVITY and the positional

faithfulness ranking that preferentially protects the root tone.

(19) Input: H+

| /nwun-imyen/ ‘if eye’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

DEP(A) *SUF-H

*INIT-H

H+

| a. nwun-imyen

* * *

H+

| b. nwun-imyen

*! *

H+

| c. nwun-imyen

*! * *

(20) Input: H+ H | | /nwun-pota/ ‘than eye’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

MAX-SUF(H)

MAX-SUF(A)

DEP

(A) *SUF-

H *INIT

-H H+

| a. nwun-pota

* * * * *

H+ H | | b. nwun-pota

*! * * *

H+

| c. nwun-pota

*! * * *

H | d. nwun-pota

*! * *

88 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

For the R/LH1 class, the underlying representation has a spread H+ pre-linked to

the second mora. This makes the derivation of monosyllabic nouns without suffixes

particularly interesting. We illustrate this in (21) using the word nwǔn ‘snow’. We

assume that the input to the word has only one mora as vowel length is not

contrastive in South Kyungsang. The H+ tone, therefore, is associated to a second

mora that has no segmental content in the input, which we mark as μ. We assume

that this empty mora can be realized in the output either by being associated with

segmental content or merged with an existing mora to the right that is already

associated with segmental content in the input. The directionality requirement of

free mora merging can be considered as the lexical property of this class of words: if

the free mora is merged with a segmentally-associated mora to the left, the H+ tone

will be effectively realized on the initial mora of the word, which is in conflict with

the lexical tonal specification of this class of words. One way to formally capture

this is via an undominated constraint *μ ← μ·, which states that an empty mora

cannot be merged with the mora to its left. For nwun ‘snow’ in (21), the winner (a)

associates the empty mora with the segmental content (the rime) and lengthens the

rime. Candidate (b), which adds an association between the H+ and the first mora,

violates DEP(Assoc) one more time and causes the initial mora to have an H tone. In

the faithful candidate (c), since the H-tone-bearing mora is not associated with any

segmental content, the CULMINATIVITY constraint is therefore violated as the word

does not include any realized H tone. If the H+ tone is dislodged from the empty

mora and reassociated to the previous mora (d), then it violates both MAX-ROOT

(Assoc) and DEP(Assoc), the former of which is fatal. Finally, if the empty mora is

merged with the mora on the left (e), then it violates the undominated directionality

constraint for mora merging mentioned above and thus also loses. (Given that the

directionality constraint is undominated, in the tableaux that follow we will not be

considering candidates in which the empty mora merges leftward.) Notice that

candidates (d) and (e) have the same phonetic realization but differ in their

representation. Assuming that there is an undominated DEP(μ) that prevents the

insertion of a mora in the output, SPREAD-H+ is irrelevant in the entire evaluation

here as there is no available mora for the H+ to spread to.


123

(21) Input: H+

| µ µ | /nwun/ ‘snow’

*μ μ MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

DEP(A) *INIT-H

H+

| µ µ |

a. nwun

*

H+

| µ µ | b. nwun

**! *

H+

| µ µ | c. nwun

*!

H+

µ µ | d. nwun

*! * *

H+

| µ μ | e. nwun

*! *

When nwǔn ‘snow’ is followed by a toneless monosyllabic suffix such as -un, asin (22), the empty mora can then be merged with the mora provided by the

segmental content of the suffix to the right, which causes the word to have an L-H

pattern as in (a). Candidate (b) has the same phonetic realization as (a) but

representationally dislodges the H+ tone from the empty mora and reassociates it to

the following mora, thus causing violations of MAX-ROOT(Assoc) and DEP(Assoc),

the former of which is fatal. Leaving the empty mora unassociated with segmental

material (c), though satisfying *SUFFIX-H, incurs a fatal violation of the undom-

inated CULMINATIVITY. If we associate the empty mora with the segmental content of

the suffix, which effectively lengthens the vowel in the suffix, the candidate that

does not spread the H+ (d) loses due to SPREAD-H+, and the candidate that does (e)

loses due to DEP(Assoc) violations. Associating the empty mora with the segmental

content of the root, which lengthens the root vowel (not shown here), will also not

be a viable option similar to (d) and (e).

90 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

(22) Input: H+

| µ µ µ | | /nwun - un/ ‘snow (topic)’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

DEP(A) *SUF-H

*INIT-H

H+

| µ μ µ | |

a. nwun - un

*

H+

µ μ µ | | b. nwun - un

*! * *

H+

| µ µ µ | | c. nwun - un

*!

H+

| µ µ µ | | d. nwun - un

*! * *

H+

| µ µ µ | | e. nwun - un

*!* *

When nwǔn ‘snow’ is followed by a toneless disyllabic suffix such as -imyen as in(23), there is a mora to the right of the empty mora for it to merge with and another

mora for the H+ tone to spread rightward to as shown in the winner (a). Its phonetic

equivalent, which dislodges the H+ from the empty mora and reassociates it

rightward, again loses due to a MAX-ROOT(Assoc) violation as in (b). Not spreading

the H+ tone (c) is not an option due to the high ranking of SPREAD-H+ (assuming

that the free mora is merged with the mora associated with the first vowel in the

suffix in this candidate). In (d), the free mora is associated with the first vowel in the

suffix instead of merging with its mora, and the H+ spreads. This candidate loses

due to an additional violation of the DEP(Assoc) constraint. Associating the empty

mora with the segmental content of the root similarly will not be a viable option (not

shown here).


123

(23) Input: H+

| µ µ µ µ | | | /nwun - imyen/ ‘if snow’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

DEP(A) *SUF-H

*INIT-H

H+

| µ μ µ µ | | | a. nwun - imyen

* **

H+

| µ μ µ μ | | | b. nwun - imyen

*! ** **

H+

| µ µ µ | | | c. nwun-imyen

*! * *

H+

| µ µ µ µ | | | d. nwun-imyen

**! *

When nwǔn ‘snow’ is followed by a toned disyllabic suffix -póta as in (24), the

winning candidate (a) merges the free mora with the first mora of the suffix and

spreads the H+ tone one mora to the right; the H tone on the suffix is deleted.

Dislodging the H+ from the empty mora and reassociating it with the following

mora (b) violates MAX-ROOT(Assoc) fatally. Not spreading the H+ (c) violates the

undominated SPREAD-H+ (again assuming the rightward merging of the empty

mora). Linking the free mora with the segmental content of the root, i.e.,

lengthening the root vowel, and spreading the H+ to the first mora of the suffix (d)

incurs an additional DEP(Assoc) violation, which is fatal. And keeping the H+ on the

root and H on the suffix, as in (e), violates both SPREAD-H+ and CULMINATIVITY.

92 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

(24) Input: H+ H | | µ µ µ µ | | | /nwun - pota/ ‘if snow’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

MAX-SUF(H)

MAX-SUF(A)

DEP

(A) *SUF-

H *INIT

-H H+

| µ μ µ µ | | | a. nwun - pota

* * * **

H+

| µ μ µ μ | | | b. nwun - po ta

*! * * ** **

H+

| µ µ µ | | | c. nwun-pota

*! * * *

H+

| µ µ µ µ | | | d. nwun-pota

* * **! *

H+H | | µ µ µ µ | | | e. nwun-pota

*! * * *

Cases with disyllabic roots in this tone class are simpler as the H+ tone comes

associated with the second mora in the input. We illustrate the disyllabic cases with

the word sàlám ‘person’ followed by the disyllabic toned suffix -póta as an example

in (25). The winning candidate (a) spreads the H+ tone one mora to the right onto

the suffix and deletes the H tone on the suffix. Not spreading the H+ (b) violates the

undominated SPREAD-H+, and keeping the H+ on the root and H on the suffix, as in

(c), violates both SPREAD-H+ and CULMINATIVITY.


123

(25) Input: H+ H | | µ µ µ µ | | | | /salam-pota/ ‘if person’

MAX-RT(H)

MAX-RT(A)

SPRD

-H+CULMI

NAT

MAX-SUF(H)

MAX-SUF(A)

DEP

(A) *SUF-

H *INIT

-H H+

| µ µ µ µ | | | |

a. salam-pota

* * * *

H+

| µ µ µ µ | | | | b. salam-pota

*! * *

H+ H | | µ µ µ µ | | | | d. salam-pota

*! * *

For the H2/LH2 class, which we analyzed as toneless underlyingly, we illustrate

first with a monosyllabic word mún ‘door’ as in (26): the winner is the candidate thatinserts an H on the root syllable (a), which, despite its violations of DEP constraints

and *INITIAL-H, is more harmonic than the faithful candidate (b) that violates the

undominated CULMINATIVITY.

(26) Input: /mun/ ‘door’

CULMI

NAT

DEP(H) DEP(A) *SUF-H

*INIT-H

H |

a. mun

* * *

b. mun *

When mún ‘door’ is followed by a toneless disyllabic suffix -imyen as in (27), the

winner (a) assigns an H tone to the root syllable, violating *INITIAL-H. Its closest

competitor (b) assigns an H tone to the first suffix syllable, violating *SUFFIX-H,

which is higher ranked than *INITIAL-H. A faithful rendition of the input without H

insertion, though it fares better with DEP constraints, violates the undominated *#LL

and CULMINATIVITY.

94 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

(27) Input: /mun-imyen/ ‘if door’

*#LL CULMI

NAT


*INIT-H

H |

a. mun-imyen

* * *

H | b. mun-imyen

* * *!

c. mun-imyen *! *

When mún ‘door’ is followed by a toned disyllabic suffix -póta as in (28), the

winner (a) is the faithfulness candidate that keeps the underlying suffix H. Relinking

the H to the root syllable (b) violates both MAX-SUFFIX(Assoc) and DEP(Assoc), both

of which are higher ranked than *SUFFIX-H, which the winner violates. Deleting the

H (c) incurs costly violations of *#LL and CULMINATIVITY as well as the MAX

constraints.

(28) Input: H | /mun-pota/ ‘than door’

*#LL CULMI

NAT

MAX-SUF(H)

MAX-SUF(A)

DEP

(H) DEP

(A) *SUF-

H *INIT

-H H |

a. mun-pota

*

H | b. mun-pota

*! * *

c. mun-pota *! * * *

For a disyllabic toneless word pàlám ‘wind’, shown in (29), the winner (a) inserts

an H tone on the second syllable, and its closest rival (b), which inserts the H on the

initial syllable, incurs a spurious violation of *INITIAL-H. Not inserting the H violates

the undominated *#LL and CULMINATIVITY.

(29) Input: /palam/ ‘wind’

*#LL CULMI

NAT


*INIT-H

H |

a. palam

* *

H | b. palam

* * *!

c. palam *! *


123

When pàlám ‘wind’ is followed by a toneless disyllabic suffix -imyen (30), the

winner (a) puts the H tone on the second syllable of the root, avoiding violations of

both *SUFFIX-H and *INITIAL-H. Putting the H tone on the suffix (b) incurs spurious

violations of both *#LL and *SUFFIX-H, and not inserting the H tone (c) again

violates both *#LL and CULMINATIVITY.

(30) Input: /palam-imyen/ ‘if wind’

*#LL CULMI

NAT


*INIT-H

H |

a. palam-imyen

* *

H | b. palam-imyen

*! * * *

c. palam-imyen *! *

Finally, when pàlám ‘wind’ is followed by a toned disyllabic suffix -póta as in

(31), the winner (a) spreads the suffix H one syllable to the left to avoid a *#LL

violation. Not spreading the H (b) fatally violates the highly ranked *#LL, and

relinking the H to the second syllable in the root (c) incurs a violation of MAX-

SUFFIX(Assoc), which is more highly ranked than *SUFFIX-H, which the winner

violates. Finally, deleting the H (d) is again not an option due to its costly violations

of *#LL and CULMINATIVITY as well as the MAX constraints.

(31) Input: H | /palam-pota/ ‘than wind’

*#LL CULMI

NAT

MAX-SUF(H)

MAX-SUF(A)

DEP

(H) DEP

(A) *SUF-

H *INIT

-H H

| a. palam-pota

* *

H | b. palam-pota

*! *

H | c. palam-pota

*! *

d. palam-pota *! * * *

So far, we have provided a complete analysis for the pitch accent pattern of our

most consistent speaker, namely Speaker 2. The analysis relies on the following key

elements. First, we proposed three pitch accents and one accentless class for South

Kyungsang Korean nouns. The underlying representations of the accents observe

the culminative tone typology proposed by Evans (2009) in that accents that count

from the left have a spreading property while accents that count from the right do

not. Second, when both the root and the suffix have an underlying pitch accent, only

the one on the root surfaces. This is derived by the positional faithfulness ranking

96 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

that preferentially protects the root accent together with the CULMINATIVITY

constraint. Third, other markedness constraints, such as *#LL, *SUFFIX-H, and

*INITIAL-H, interact with faithfulness constraints MAX and DEP regarding H tone and

association lines to derive all surface tone patterns.

4 Extending the analysis to variable patterns

In this section we make a preliminary sketch of how the analysis proposed above

can be extended to account for the speaker variations we have observed in our data.

We have seen two general types of variations. One is for the R/LH1 and H2/LH2

classes to merge (Speaker 1). In principle, this can be captured by proposing one

underlying representation for both classes. But in reality it is not clear what this

merged UR would be for this speaker as the merging only occurs for certain

suffixes, not across the board, for most of the lexical items. Therefore, it seems to us

that we have caught a language change in progress in this speaker, and his current

grammar likely includes a fair amount of lexical listing in order to produce the

irregular tonal behavior. Notice that this change is already complete in favor of the

H2/LH2 class in North Kyungsang Korean (see Sect. 1).

The second type of variation is for the difference between the two types of

disyllabic suffixes to disappear (Speakers 3 and 4). Between the two speakers,

Speaker 4 seems to be farther along in this merger, as the merger can be observed in

both monosyllabic and disyllabic noun roots. The direction of merging is also clear

in this speaker: -póta is taking on the behavior of -imyen/ lamyen, indicating that

-póta is losing its underlying tone. For the toneless nouns after which -póta still

keeps the underlying H tone behavior, the nouns then must be lexically marked with

a feature to preserve suffix tones. Alternatively, the suffix -póta needs to be

accompanied with a list of nouns after which it exhibits the H tone behavior. For

Speaker 3, however, the merger is observed only in disyllabic nouns, and the

direction of the merger is towards -póta. So for this speaker -imyen/-lamyen seems to

be in the process of acquiring an underlying H tone. The disagreement between

Speakers 3 and 4 is an indication to us that suffixal accent contrast is at an unstable

stage, and we have likely again caught a language change in progress.

Although we are not in a position to make strong generalizations regarding the

variable patterns based on only four speakers’ data, making a formal analysis of the

variations premature, a further study (Lee et al. 2013; Lee 2013), designed to

investigate the effect of age on the tonal pattern of South Kyungsang with a

considerably larger number of speakers, shows that the tendencies of accent merger

and the non-distinctive suffixal tones are systematic, not anecdotal, and a

comparison with pitch patterns in Seoul Korean indicates that the contact with

this dominant dialect is responsible for these changes. In particular, Lee et al. (2013)

show that (1) R/LH1 and H2/LH2 classes are less contrastive among younger

Kyungsang speakers compared to older Kyungsang speakers, and (2) for the H2 and

LH2 classes, while older Kyungsang speakers show distinct tonal patterns in

suffixes, younger speakers do not.


123

5 Extending the analysis to trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic nouns

This section extends our proposed analysis to longer nouns. Table 10 presents the

reported accent patterns of nouns in isolation including tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns

(adopted from Utsugi 2009 with some modifications). Table 10 also contains our

proposed underlying tonal classifications to show how our analysis fits into the

reported accent classes. In Table 10, we can see that our proposed tonal

classification fits Utsugi’s descriptive tone patterns except for the unavailability

of an underlying tone class for the trisyllabic HLL (Non-final (–3)) noun. In

addition, Table 10 shows an identical LHH pattern for trisyllabic Final and Medial-

Double nouns and an identical LHHL pattern for quadrisyllabic Medial-Double and

Non-final (–2) nouns. Utsugi (2009) proposed an accent merger for these identical

patterns.

We examined acoustic data for monomorphemic trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic

nouns to empirically verify the descriptive pitch patterns for the longer nouns and to

test the merger proposed by Utsugi (2009). The data were collected from a female

speaker (32 years old, Pusan), and the tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns for each accent

class were recorded twice with the same suffix conditions in Table 6: (1) isolation,

(2) -un/-nun, (3) -to, (4) -póta, (5) -imyen/-lamyen. The recorded word lists for

tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns are provided in Appendix 2.

Our acoustic data for tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns support the pitch patterns

reported in the literature for most cases. However, considerable mismatches

between the reported and observed patterns were found for trisyllabic HLL words.

Among the six HLL words recorded, only one word (a.ci.mey) showed a clear HLL

pattern; two other words (mye.nu.li and nam.tay.mun) could also be potentially

interpreted as HLL if we consider the later pitch peak to have resulted from peak

delay; an LHL pattern was observed for the other three words. The pitch patterns for

these six words were observed consistently under all suffix conditions. The F0

tracings for these six HLL words with suffixes are provided in Fig. 2.

Based on the considerable mismatch between reported and observed patterns for

HLL trisyllabic nouns, it seems premature to argue for a separate underlying tone

class for HLL. Notably, South Kyungsang Korean does not have monomorphemic

Table 10 Accent patterns of nouns in South Kyungsang Korean. The patterns in parentheses are com-

pounds or derived nouns. “–2”, “−3”, and “–4” indicate “penultimate”, “antepenultimate”, and“preantepenultimate” syllables, respectively

Current analysis Pre-linked H+

on initialToneless Pre-linked H+

on peninitialPre-linked H on penult

Utsugi

(2009)

Initial-double Final Medial-double Non-final

(–2)

Non-final

(–3)

Non-final

(–4)

Mono- H H Ra

Di- HH LH LH HL

Tri- HHL LHH LHH LHL HLL

Quadri- HHLL (LHHH) LHHL LHHL (LHLL) (HLLL)

a The monosyllabic R class is described as L in Utsugi (2009)

98 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

4-syllabled HLLL and LHLL nouns with which the trisyllabic HLL class might be

categorized. In other words, the rarity of HLL nouns and the non-existence of

monomorphemic HLLL and LHLL nouns indicate that the pitch accent system of

South Kyungsang Korean does not necessarily need an additional tone class for

these accent patterns, and the tone class for HLL may be dispensable in the lexical

pitch accent system of the language. Figure 2, however, shows the HLL pattern for

the word a.ci.mey ‘a middle aged woman’ under different suffixes. There are two

possible explanations for this without having to resort to a separate underlying

representation. One is that the word a.ci.mey is a truncated form for the word a.cwu.me.ni (LHHL), and the other is that a.ci.mey is spoken only in the Kyungsang

region, not in other Korean regions. This possibly suggests that a different grammar

is required either for truncated forms or for lexical items used only in Kyungsang

Korean.

Regarding the accent merger for tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns, Utsugi (2007)

argued for a complete merger of the Medial-Double (peninitial H+) and the Non-

Final (–2) (penultimate H) tone classes for quadrisyllabic nouns. Note that the

accent pattern of the quadrisyllabic penultimate H words is not LLHL but LHHL,

due to *#LL. As a result of the *#LL constraint, both the Medial-Double (peninitial

H+) and the Non-Final (–2) (penultimate H) quadrisyllabic nouns have the LHHL

surface pattern. In his later study, Utsugi (2009) proposed an on-going merger of

Final (toneless) and Medial-Double (peninitial H+) accents for trisyllabic nouns.

The following pieces of supporting evidence were given by Utsugi (2009) for the

50

150

250

350

450

0 40 80 10 50 90 20 60 100 30 70 0 40 80

-1 -2 -3 -4 -5

F0

(Hz)

Time: % of each syllable

a.ci.mey'a middle aged woman'

50

150

250

350

450

0 40 80 10 50 90 20 60 100 30 70 0 40 80

-1 -2 -3 -4 -5

mye.nu.li'a daughter in law'

50

150

250

350

450

0 40 80 10 50 90 20 60 100 30 70 0 40 80

-1 -2 -3 -4 -5

nam.tay.mun'South gate of Seoul'

50

150

250

350

450

0 40 80 10 50 90 20 60 100 30 70 0 40 80

-1 -2 -3 -4 -5

F0

(Hz)


a.hu.le'nine days'

50

150

250

350

450

0 40 80 10 50 90 20 60 100 30 70 0 40 80

-1 -2 -3 -4 -5

e.lin.i'a child'

50

150

250

350

450

0 40 80 10 50 90 20 60 100 30 70 0 40 80

-1 -2 -3 -4 -5

ka.mul.chi'a mullet'

isolation(n)un(la)imyenpota

Fig. 2 Pitch patterns for the trisyllabic nouns in the HLL class with four suffixes: (1) isolation, (2) -un/-nun, (3) -imyen/-lamyen, (4) -póta. Each F0 track was pooled across two repetitions (The F0 contour ofthe fifth syllable does not appear clearly due to glottalization. The F0 track of test words with themonosyllabic suffix -to is consistent with that of the monosyllabic suffix -un/-nun.)


123

merger-in-progress between Final (toneless) and Medial-Double (peninitial H+): (1)

no difference in pitch register between Final and Medial-Double, (2) complete

merger of Medial-Double (peninitial H+) and Non-final (−2) (penultimate H) in

quadrisyllabic nouns, (3) identical accent pattern for Final (toneless) and Medial-

Double (peninitial H+) words with suffixes of different underlying tones.

Our acoustic data for the longer nouns also confirmed the merger between Final

(toneless) andMedial-Double (peninitial H+) for trisyllabic nouns proposed in Utsugi

(2009). Hypothetically, we expect the accent pattern of LHH-HL for the ‘toneless’

noun but LHH-LL for the ‘peninitialH+’ nounwhen thesewords are affixedwith -póta‘than’. For example, when tay.na.mu ‘bamboo’ in the toneless class is affixed with

-póta, the LHH-HL pattern is expected; when ho.lang.i ‘tiger’ in the peninitial H+

class is affixedwith -póta, the LHH-LL pattern is expected. Under the current analysis,

the tone in -póta surfaces with toneless words but not for underlyingly pre-linked H

tone words, due to the tonal culminativity. But in the actual data, both tay.na.mu-pota(toneless) and ho.lang.i-pota (peninitial H+) showed LHH-LL, consistent with

Utsugi’s observation. This indicates that the trisyllabic LHH in the two underlying

tone classes may lose their accent distinctions, preferring the peninitial H+ (Medial-

Double) pattern, and the merger is on-going. Given the merger of the toneless class

with the peninitial H+ class in trisyllabic nouns, the established constraints and their

ranking in the current study can derive the surface pitch patterns for trisyllabic LHH

nouns of the peninitial H+ class.

To sum up, the current analysis with the four underlying tone classes can be

extended to tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns with no required modifications regarding

both underlying tonal classes and constraint interactions. Given the rarity of HLL

words and the accent merger in tri- and quadrisyllabic nouns, our analysis can

successfully derive the surface accent patterns in these longer words.

6 Analytical comparisons

In this section we provide a comparison between our analysis of South Kyungsang

pitch accent and the analyses in the literature for both North and South Kyungsang.

We first review analyses that consider the accent tone to be an H tone and thus share

similarities with our own analysis; then we discuss Lee and Davis (2009), who

consider the accent to be a pitch fall. Table 11 summarizes the first type of analyses

in the literature along with our own for each tone class. For North Kyungsang, the

R/LH1 class has been merged with the H2/LH2 class (see Sect. 1).

For the HL tone class, our analysis is in line with that of Schuh and Kim (2007),

who also argued that this accented H is assigned to the penult in the root. The

advantage of this analysis over Ramsey’s (1975) and Lee’s (2008) analysis whereby

the H accent falls on the initial syllable lies in its easy account for the absence of

this pattern in monosyllabic roots6 without additional stipulations. The non-spread

6 Although we are not aware of native words that have an HL pattern on monosyllables, Kim (1997)

reports that English monosyllabic loanwords regularly take this pattern (e.g., ‘bell’ is pêyl with a falling

pitch contour). We currently do not have an analysis for this pattern.

100 H. Lee, J. Zhang

123

property of this accent also agrees better with cross-linguistic typology à la Evans

(2009) if it counts from the right edge of the root. Kenstowicz and Sohn’s (1997)

“non-final” analysis of this tone class requires further specification of where the

accent falls in longer words while our analysis, along with Schuh and N’s, makes

clear predictions. Kim (1997) argued that words in this tone class are toneless, or

unmarked, and a default H is assigned to the penultimate syllable based on the tone

patterns of loanwords and longer words in which the penultimate syllable takes a

high tone. However, Kim’s observation was made from only 34 loanwords; in

addition, given the fact that the LLHL pattern with the two initial low tones is

prohibited in South Kyungsang Korean, it seems dubious whether the default-H on

the penult is valid. For loanwords in South Kyungsang Korean, Lee (2009) indicated

other accent patterns such as HH/HHL and LH/LHH as well as HL/LHL and argued

the importance of syllable weight in predicting the accent patterns for loanwords.

Chang (2005) also argued against the default nature of penultimate H based on

phonetic data: under the assumption that marked tones are phonetically more

prominent than unmarked tones, the H in this class is better interpreted as a marked

tone as it is more prominent than the H tone in the H2/LH2 class. Finally, given that

words in this class consistently have an H tone on the penult, it is not clear what the

“default” analysis buys us. Under Optimality Theory, Lexicon Optimization (Prince

and Smolensky 1993/2004) would in fact select the pre-linked form as the input as

the derivation from it incurs the fewest faithfulness violations.

For the H1/HH tone class, we proposed the underlying representation “pre-linked

H+ at the initial mora,” where H+ is an H tone that spreads one mora to the right.

Other analyses in the literature generally fall into two types: those that treat it as a

doubly linked accent (Kenstowicz and Sohn 1997; Schuh and Kim 2007) and those

that treat it as an underlying floating H that docks onto two syllables (moras) on the

surface. Ramsey’s (1975) “pre-accented H” analysis is akin to the latter as it

assumes only that there is a pre-existing H accent in the tonal representation of this

class of words without specifying the association between the H and any syllables.

Similar to the “default tone” analysis for the HL class, the “floating tone” account

here also requires additional derivational mechanisms and is disfavored by Lexicon

Optimization. The doubly linked accent, though preferred by Lexicon Optimization,

causes the analysis to lose the typological asymmetry in the directionality of

spreading as there is no restriction on where doubly linked accent can occur. Our

analysis, on the other hand, restricts the H+ with a spread property to start from the

left edge of an accent domain and makes better typological predictions in this

regard.

For the R/LH1 tone class, our proposal that the underlying pitch accent is a “pre-

linked H+ at the peninitial mora” is again similar to Schuh and Kim’s (2007). But

our analysis specifies a spreading property of the H rather having a doubly linked H

in the UR for the same advantage outlined above. Our analysis draws a similarity

between the H1/HH class and the R/LH1 class in that both tone classes involve a

spread H accent, with their only difference being the location of the pre-linked H.

Consequently, we do not need to distinguish between accented Hs and accentless Hs

as Schuh and Kim did. The similarity between H1/HH and R/LH1 is also reflected

in Ramsey’s (1975) analysis in the sense that he treated both classes as having a


123

pre-accented H and differentiated them only by the presence (R/LH1) or absence

(H1/HH) of an initial L tone.

Finally, for the H2/LH2 class, the current analysis is in line with that of Ramsey’s

(1975) and Schuh and Kim’s (2007). We have argued that words in this class have no

underlying pitch accent and that the surface tone patterns are derived through the

interaction between markedness constraints such as *#LL, *SUFFIX-H, and *INITIAL-H

and faithfulness constraints MAX and DEP regarding H tone and association lines.

Kenstowicz and Sohn (1997),7 Kim (1997), and Lee (2008) have all suggested a pre-

linked H tone on the final root syllable for this tone class in North Kyungsang. This

analysis cannot be easily extended to South Kyungsang for the following reasons.

First, as we have seen, monosyllabic H2 words do not have an H tone in the root when

occurring with the toned suffix -póta. The absence of the root H cannot be due to the

strength of the pitch accent in -póta, as -póta does not cause the deletion of other rootaccents. Additionally, this is the only class of words that has different tonal behaviors

upon the addition of two suffixes -imyen/-lamyen and -póta. The difference can be

easily accounted for if this class of words is toneless and if -póta, but not -imyen/-lamyen, has an underlying pitch accent. If this class of words has an underlying pitchaccent, wewould expect it to override the pitch accent of the suffix under culminativity

and positional faithfulness, effectively rendering identical pitch patterns for both

Table 11 A summary of phonological analyses for Kyungsang pitch accent in the literature

North Kyungsang South Kyungsang

Tone class Kenstowicz

and Sohn

(1997)

Kim (1997) Lee (2008) Ramsey

(1975)

Schuh and

Kim (2007)

Current

analysis

HL Nonfinal

accent

Default H H |

Tonic:

initial H

Accented H /

Hσ/, /σHσ/

H |

µµ

H1/HH Double

accent

Floating H H Tonic: pre-

accented H

Accented H /

HHσ/ H+

| # µ

R/LH1 Tonic:

pre-accented H

with an initial L

Accentless H /

σHH/ H+

| # µ µ

H2/LH2 Final

accent

Pre-linked H H |

Atonic Toneless /σ/ Toneless

7 Kenstowicz and Sohn (1997) suggested that while the final H may spread to a following verb from an

upstep operation, presence of a case marker triggers downstep blocking H-spread to the following verb.


123

-imyen/-lamyen and -póta suffixation. It would be interesting, however, to examine the

pitch patterns for this class of words under -póta suffixation in North Kyungsang to

evaluate the effectiveness of the “final-accent” analysis for this particular dialect.

Overall, our analysis is the most similar to Schuh and Kim’s (2007), but we have

restricted the dimensions along which pitch accents can vary to the location of pre-

linking and whether the accent spreads, with the additional requirement that the

location of spread tones counts from the left. We believe that the resulting system

fits better into our current understanding of culminative tone typology, and our

analysis for the accent patterns is formal and explicit.

A recent study (Lee and Davis 2009) addresses the pitch accent system of South

Kyungsang Korean by viewing the tonal pattern as ‘accented’ and ‘unaccented’

based on the presence or absence of a pitch fall within a word, an insight gained

from the Japanese accentual system (Haraguchi 1999). The phonological analysis of

Lee and Davis (2009) for the pitch accent system of South Kyungsang is presented

in Table 12.

Under Lee and Davis’s view, words are classified as either accented or

unaccented. The phonetic realization of the accented class is the presence of a pitch

fall within the word; no pitch fall surfaces for the unaccented class. In Table 12, the

accented syllable is indicated by H*, marking the high toned syllable immediately

before the low tone. According to the location of H* + L, one can tell whether a

word belongs to the first-, second-, or third-syllable accented class. Along with the

accented and unaccented classifications, Lee and Davis (2009) proposed that South

Kyungsang has an initial tone register: if the initial syllable is accented, (e.g., in

Table 12 The accent pattern of South Kyungsang Korean and its phonological analysis in Lee and Davis

(2009, p. 8)

1st σaccented

1st σregister tone(unaccented)

2nd σaccented

2nd σunaccented

3rd σaccented

monosyllabicnouns

Registertones

H H

L L

None None H*

disyllabicnouns

Registertones

HH H*

LL H* LH

None None H*L

trisyllabicnouns

Registertones

HH H*L

LL H*L LHH*

None None H*LL

quadrisyllabicnouns

Registertones

HH H*LL

HLL H*L

None None

Adopting Table 12 from Lee and Davis (2009) has been permitted by the journal, Langauge and Research


123

H*L), then it has no register tone; if the initial syllable is unaccented, then it belongs

to the H register class if it has an H tone (e.g., in H or HH*) and to the L register

class if it has an L tone (e.g., in LH* or LH). The properties of the initial register H

or L tone include (1) the register tones are never changed under suffixation, and (2)

the initial register L tone belonging to the unaccented class deaccents the tone in

suffixes. Therefore, the underlying tones under Lee and Davis’s analysis are

determined by (1) the presence or absence of the falling accent, (2) the location of

the accented syllable, (3) the presence or absence of the initial register tone, and (4)

the type of the initial register tone: (a) register H of an accented class (HH*), (b)

register H of an unaccented class (H), (c) register L of an accented class (LH*), or

(d) register L of an unaccented class (LH). Together with the constraints such as

*#LL, *#HHH, and *HHH#, this theoretical analysis in Lee and Davis (2009)

accounts for the pitch accent system of South Kyungsang.

Comparing Lee andDavis’s analysis (Table 12)with the current proposal (Table 9),

we can see that our analysis seems more economical in terms of its underlying tones.

Specifically, while we account for the full range of nominal accent patterns of South

Kyungsang with four underlying tonal classes, Lee and Davis’s analysis requires six

underlying tones (assuming that the monosyllabic accented pattern H* and the

disyllabic first-syllable accented pattern H*L are the same underlying pattern) to

derive the monosyllabic and disyllabic accent patterns. This is due to the fact that Lee

andDavis (2009) did not consider some of the commonality between themonosyllabic

and disyllabic tone patterns. For example, Lee and Davis (2009) analyzed the

monosyllabic nwun H(H) ‘eye’ as an unaccented pattern with an H register tone and

the disyllabic kunulHH(L) ‘shade’ as a second-syllable accented pattern, but we wereable to analyze both of them as an initial H+ pattern. Similarly, the monosyllabicmunH(L) ‘door’ and the disyllabic palam LH(L) ‘wind’ were analyzed differently by Lee

and Davis (2009) as an accented pattern without register tone and a second-syllable

accent pattern with an L register tone, respectively, but they can be both subsumed

under the toneless pattern under our analysis.

Table 13 lists how Lee and Davis (2009) and the current study analyze the

representative tone patterns, highlighting the underlying representations and the

other constraints necessary to derive all the current surface tone patterns. We can

see that Lee and Davis (2009) appeal to markedness constraints such as *HL-HL,

*#HHH, *HHH#, and *#LL and also require an L register tone to deaccent the suffix

tone. Our analysis, on the other hand, uses CULMINATIVITY, *#LL, *SUFFIX-H, and

*INITIAL-H as well as faithfulness constraints MAX-ROOT(H) and MAX-SUFFIX(H). We

believe that three points of comparisons are in our favor.

First, in terms of the generality of the constraints, although both analyses use

markedness constraints that reflect the idiosyncratic tonotactic generalizations of the

language (*#HHH, *HHH#, in Lee and Davis (2009), *Initial-H in our analysis,

*#LL in both), our analysis has more generality in the rest of the elements:

CULMINATIVITY is a property that characterizes many pitch accent systems (Evans

2009), and the preservation of the H accent in favor of the root is also common;

*HL-HL in Lee and Davis (2009) does not have the generality of CULMINATIVITY,

and the requirement for an initial register tone to influence the tone of a non-local

suffix is cross-linguistically rare.


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Second, for the tonal pattern of the suffixed forms, our analysis also has greater

cross-linguistic validity and is more straightforward than Lee and Davis’s. In our

analysis, the H tone of the suffix -póta ‘than’8 is preserved only when the root is

underlyingly toneless due to MAX-ROOT(H) » MAX-SUFFIX(H) and the high ranking of

CULMINATIVITY. The root faithfulness pattern is cross-linguistically common, as shown

Table 13 Analytical comparison between Lee and Davis (2009) and the current study for the accent

patterns of monosyllabic and disyllabic nouns under suffixation

Lee and Davis (2009) Current analysis

kewul ‘mirror’ HL Initial accent; no register tone Penult H

kewul-i HL-L HL-HL for kewul-pota is ruled out by*HL-HL.

HL-HL for kewul-pota is ruledout by CULMINATIVITY, MAX-RT

(H) » MAX-SUF(H).kewul-imyen HL-LL

kewul-pota HL-LL

nwun ‘eye’ H Unaccented; H register tone Initial H+

nwun-i H-H H-HH for nwun-imyenis ruled out by*#HHH.

HH-HL for kunul-pota is ruledout by CULMINATIVITY, MAX-RT

(H) » MAX-SUF(H).nwun-imyen H-HL

nwun-pota H-HL

kunul ‘shade’ HH Final accented; H register tone

kunul-i HH-L HH-HL for kunul-pota is ruled out bydeleting H in the suffix accordingto *#HHH.

kunul-imyen HH-LL

kunul-pota HH-LL

mun ‘door’ H Initial accented; no register tone Toneless

mun-i H-L H-LL for mun-pota is ruled out(see comment below).

*#LL, CULMINATIVITY

MAX-SUF (H) allows the underlyingH in -pota to surface.

*SUF-H prefers H in a root.

*INITIAL-H prefers non-initial H.

mun-imyen H-LL

mun-pota L-HL

palam ‘wind’ LH Final accented; L register tone

palam-i LH-L LH-LL for palam-pota is ruled out(see comment below).palam-imyen LH-LL

palam-pota LH-HL

nwun ‘snow’ R Unaccented; L register tone Peninitial H+

nwun-i L-H L-L for nwun-i and L-LL for nwun-imyen are ruled out by *#LL.

L-HL for nwun-pota is ruled out bydeaccenting the suffixal toneaccording to the nature of theunaccented L tone register.

LH-HH for salam-imyen and forsalam-pota are ruled out by*HHH#.

nwun-imyen L-HH

nwun-pota L-HH

salam ‘person’ LH

salam-i LH-H

salam-imyen LH-HL

salam-pota LH-HL

8 Lee and Davis (2009) used -chélem ‘like’ whose underlying tone is presumably identical to -póta ‘than’.


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in Beckman (1998), and the analysis captures the identical tone pattern between the

-imyen and -póta suffixes when the root is toned straightforwardly. In Lee and Davis’sanalysis, the identical tone pattern between the two types of suffixes after nwun ‘eye’and kunul ‘shade’ is due to the more ad hoc *#HHH, as shown in Table 13: the H-HLpattern of nwun-imyen ‘if eye(s)’, which is unaccented, but H-registered in both the

root and the suffix, is derived very differently from the H-HL pattern of nwun-pota‘than eye(s)’, the former due to the conversion of the final H into L to satisfy *#HHH,

the latter due to the first-syllable accent nature of the suffix; the identical tone pattern

between the two suffixes for the final-accented, H-tone-registered kunul ‘shade’ is dueto *#HHH in both cases. Formun ‘door’ and palam ‘wind’, which our analysis treats as

toneless, the surface tone patterns of the isolation and suffixed forms are derived

through the interaction among CULMINATIVITY, *#LL, *SUFFIX-H, and *INITIAL-H as

well as faithfulness constraints MAX-ROOT(H) and MAX-SUFFIX(H) as detailed in Sect.

3 and summarized in Table 13. The analysis of these patterns in Lee and Davis (2009)

are less than convincing. Bothmun and -pota are initial accented in their analysis, andthe L-HL pattern formun-pota is explained as follows: “One can understand the outputas reflecting a rule of deaccentuation that deletes the first of two consecutive accents.

Since the accent on mun ‘door’ is immediately before the accent on the suffix, it

deaccents and surfaces as low tone (Lee and Davis 2009, p. 10).” There are two

problems with this account. First, it directly contradicts the HH-LL tone pattern for

kunul-pota ‘than shade’ (kunul has final accent with an H register initial tone), which

shows the deletion of the second accented tone to satisfy *#HHH, but also to avoid twoconsecutive accents. Second, the fact that it is the root accent that is deaccented is

cross-linguistically surprising. In otherwords,H-LLwould have been amore expected

outcome for deaccenting for mun-pota. A similar problem arises for LH-HL palam-pota ‘than wind’. According to Lee and Davis (2009), palam is in the ‘final syllable

accented class with an L register tone’. To explain the LH-HL pattern, Lee and Davis

(2009) stated that “The root-final syllable cannot acquire low tone because of the

constraint against SK words beginning LL. It (the root-final syllable) stays as a high

tone, but it is not accented since it does not occur before the pitch fall (Lee and Davis

2009, p. 15).” Their analysis needs to explain why the root gets deaccented rather than

the suffix. In otherwords, it needs to explainwhyLH-LL is not the surface tone pattern.

Finally, Lee and Davis’s analysis does not consider the accentual correspondence

between contemporary Kyungsang and Middle Korean. Although historical

innovations have shaped the accentual system of Kyungsang Korean through the

Kyungsang Accent Shift (Ramsey 1975) as well as other accent mergers, many

researchers have noticed remarkably systematic correspondence in accent classes

between contemporary Kyungsang and Middle Korean (Kenstowicz et al. 2008).

For example, the words that used to have the initial R in Middle Korean now show

monosyllabic R and disyllabic LH(H) patterns, which correspond to our ‘peninitial

H+’ class. We recognize that the historical correspondence by itself cannot serve as

an argument for the synchronic analysis, but given that a historically more accurate

analysis also does better in terms of predicting the correct surface tone patterns and

having greater cross-linguistic validity, it is then less likely for the speakers to

undergo substantial restructuring, as Lee and Davis’s analysis would entail.


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7 Concluding remarks

In this paper we investigated the nominal pitch accent system in South Kyungsang

Korean both empirically and theoretically. Our acoustic data confirmed the accent

distinctions reported in earlier works on the language: there are three accent classes for

monosyllabic nouns (H1, R, H2) and four accent classes for disyllabic nouns (HL, HH,

LH1, LH2), and there is a parallel between H1 and HH, R and LH1, and H2 and LH2.

Suffixes may also bear contrastive accent: we have observed the HL accent on the

suffix -póta ‘than’; whether other accents can also appear on suffixes remains to be

seen. Theoretically, we analyzed the pitch accent system as having three pre-linked

accents and one default accent. Two of the pre-linked accents count from the left and

are linked to the initial (H1/HH) and peninitial (R/LH1) moras of the root,

respectively, and both spread one mora to the right. The other pre-linked accent

counts from the right (penult) and does not spread (HL). The H2/LH2 class has the

default accent (toneless). The surface tone patterns for both the default and pre-linked

accents are derived through constraint interaction in Optimality Theory. Compared to

other analyses, our approach provides a closer fitwith the data and fits in better with the

culminative tone typology established in Evans (2009).

There are a number of directions in which this study can be extended. Within the

language itself, we have pointed out that our understanding of pitch accent on suffixes

can benefit from investigating a larger range of suffixes, and additional accents beyond

theHL class on suffixes, if any, can provide a further test to the grammarwe proposed in

Sect. 4. It would also be interesting to investigate the pitch accent pattern of the verbal

system inorder tounderstand the extent towhich thenominal systemweproposedcanbe

extended to the entire language. Some of the pioneeringwork on verbal accent has been

done by Schuh and Kim (2010). Finally, empirical and theoretical investigation for

loanwords of SouthKyungsangKoreanwill also advance our understanding of the pitch

accent system in the language. For extensive data and a formal account for the loanword

tone patterns of South Kyungsang Korean, see Lee (2009).

In our acoustic study, we noticed a fair amount of inter-speaker variation, much of

which we were not able to provide a formal analysis for. The tendencies we observed,

however, are interesting: it seems that there are speakerswhoare in the process of losing

theR/LH1 andH2/LH2distinction and the accent distinctions on suffixes, the former of

which losses is in fact observed in full force in North KyungsangKorean.With a larger

speaker pool, we will be in a position to better understand the nature of these variations

and the changes that the Kyungsang Korean accent system is going through. This is an

interesting issue for both sociolinguistics and theoretical phonology. Sociolinguisti-

cally, the Korean government’s language policy has given Seoul Korean a strong

normative bias (Silva 2011), and consequently, the non-tonal system of Seoul Korean

may have had an influence on the tonal systems ofKyungsangKorean dialects, causing

them to weaken their tonal contrasts (but see Silva 2006 on how Seoul Korean may be

developing a tonal system from the changes in the speakers’ use of voice onset time to

cue laryngeal contrasts). The question, then, is whether we can document, and more

importantly, make predictions on how the changes occur. Phonologically, the issue of

variations and exceptions is playing an increasingly important role in its theoretical

development (see for example, Coetzee and Pater 2011). Phonologists strive to


123

understand whether speakers have active knowledge of the patterns of variation, and if

so, what the synchronic grammar must look like to account for this knowledge. South

Kyungsang Korean pitch accent, therefore, can provide us with another empirical case

to further test and refine phonological theories of variations and exceptions.

Acknowledgments The JEAL editors and four anonymous reviewers have provided us with manyinsightful comments and critiques that helped us improve the quality of this work. Russ Schuh, AllardJongman, Joan Sereno, and fellow participants in the Empirical Research seminar in the KU LinguisticsDepartment have also provided us with valuable feedback and encouragement. We are grateful to all theseindividuals, but we remain fully responsible for the data content and opinions expressed in this article.

Appendix 1

See Fig. 3.

507090

110130150170190

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3

F0

(Hz)


R (Pen-initial H+)

50

70

90

110

130

150

170

190

0 20 40 60 80100 0 20 40 60 80100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3


H1 (Initial H+)

50

70

90

110

130

150

170

190

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3


H2 (Toneless)isolation(n)un(la)imyenpota

50

70

90

110

130

150

170

190

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3 σ-4

F0

(Hz)


HL (Penult H)


50

70

90

110

130

150

170

190

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3 σ-4


HH (Initial H+)


50

70

90

110

130

150

170

190

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3 σ-4

F0

(Hz)


LH1 (Pen-initial H+)isolation(n)un(la)imyenpota

50

70

90

110

130

150

170

190

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

σ-1 σ-2 σ-3 σ-4


LH2 (Toneless)isolation(n)un(la)imyenpota

Fig. 3 F0 tracing for each tonal class in monosyllabic and disyllabic nouns with different suffixes. Alldata are from Speaker 2. F0 was averaged across the word stimuli within each accent class + suffix


123

Appendix 2

See Table 14.

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the nominal pitch accent system of south kyungsang

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