The Phonetic Realization of High Tone in North Kyungsang Korean

The main goal of this study is to examine the current issue of the deletion of high tone vs. the downstep or upstep of high tone in North Kyungsang Korean (NKK). In this phonetic experiment, five native speakers of North Kyungsang Korean participated and two categories, such as compounds and two-word phrases were included as a test material. This experiment shows that when the first word belongs to the nonfinal class, the high tone of the second word is overwhelmingly deleted. When the first word belongs to the final class, the high tone of it is also overwhelmingly deleted. It is thus concluded that when two words are combined into a phrase, the peak of one word retains, whereas the peak of the other is deleted. It is confirmed that a single high tone prominence in a phonological phrase in NKK is not due to the processes of down step or upstep but the deletion process.