A Study of the Accent of Kyengsang Korean

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370442
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: Ito Chiyuki 東京外国語大学, アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所, 准教授 (20361735)
• Research Collaborator: Albright Adam MIT, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Professor ; Do Young Ah The University of Hong Kong, Department of Linguistics, Assistant Professor ; Kenstowicz Michael MIT, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Professor ; Son Jae-Hyun 徳成女子大学, 日語日文学科, 助教授
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 韓国朝鮮語 / アクセント / 歴史言語学 / 中期朝鮮語 / 類推変化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, I investigated the accent patterns of both North and South Kyengsang dialects of Korean, in particular focusing on native nouns, Sino-Korean nouns and verbs/adjectives. Major findings are as follows. There are statistically significant correlations between accentual patterns and segmental shapes of the stems. Both dialects show regular correspondences with the attested Middle Korean accent, and irregular correspondences are explained by various phonological factors. North and South Kyengsang Korean tend to show similar accentual distributions, but some differences due to different historical developments from Middle Korean are also observed. In the Pusan dialect, monosyllabic nouns with a coronal coda tend to change the conservative accent to the innovative accent when they change the phonetic realization of the underlying traditional coda, both of which are explained as analogical changes to the default.

Free Research Field

音韻論、歴史言語学