Intonational domains of the Seoul dialect of Korean

Abstract

Pitch tracks were analyzed to determine the prosodic domains needed to described intonation patterns in the Seoul dialect of Korean. Three different domains are observed: the intonation phrase, the accentual phrase, and the phonological word. The intonation phrase consists of one or more accentual phrases, and is cued by the occurrence of a final falling or rising boundary tone configuration. The accentual phrase consists of one or more phonological words and is cued by an F0 peak at the beginning and a low‐high accent on the last syllable. Since the initial peak is not associated with every word‐initial syllable, it belongs to the accentual phrase and is not a correlate of word‐initial lexical stress. Undershoot of the initial peak occurs when the accentual phrase is very short. There is also downstep between each accentual phrase within the intonational phrase; the pitch range is reset at the beginning of a new intonation phrase.