• 한국언어정보학회지:언어와정보
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.1-20
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• 2008

This paper examines the effects of focus types on case ellipsis in Korean. A number of previous studies have suggested that accusative case markers in Korean and Japanese cannot be dropped when the object they mark is contrastively focused (Masunaga, 1988; Yatabe, 1999; Ko, 2000; Lee, 2002). Using experimental evidence, we argue against the view that case ellipsis in Korean is sensitive to the distinction between contrastive vs. non-contrastive focus. An alternative analysis is proposed which accounts for the phenomenon of variable case marking in terms of the interaction between the contrastive strength and the discourse accessibility of focused object NPs. By viewing patterns of case ellipsis as the result of balancing between these two forces, such an analysis can correctly predict the gradient pattern of case ellipsis shown by the three types of focused objects tested in the experiment (contrastive replacing focus, contrastive selecting focus and non-contrastive, informational focus), while at the same time offering an explanation for why subtypes of focus exert distinct influences on case ellipsis.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 2005년도 추계 학술대회 발표논문집
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• pp.179-184
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• 2005

The aim of this paper is to analyze the phonetic features of the lexical contrastive focus and the segmental contrastive focus. In this paper, I made two variables to study the realization of the contrastive focus. One is the three phonation types of the Korean plosive, a lenis, a fortis and an aspirate. The other is the positions of the segmental contrastive focus syllable in a word. I examined pitch, duration, intensity, VOT, formant, and so on. The realization of focus is different by the phonation types and the positions of the focused syllable.

• 음성과학
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• 제9권4호
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• pp.215-234
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• 2002

This study is designed for two purposes. The first one is to compare the realization and perception of English contrastive focus between Korean learners of English and native speakers of English. The second purpose is to study the phonological and phonetical features of contrastive focus by examining the results of production and perception experiments. English native speakers' results show that the English contrastive accents are generally accompanied by higher peak heights. The findings agree with the results of Bartels & Kingston (1994). Unlike native speakers of English, Korean speakers seem to be poor at relating the phonetical features of contrastive focus to their actual speech. Korean speakers' results are especially unsuccessful when the contrast is not distinctly grasped through syntactic structure, or when the function words are contrasted. Furthermore, Korean speakers' utterances tend to have pitch accents on every content word, whether the word is contrasted or not.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제1권2호
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• pp.119-128
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• 2009

Many researchers have argued about the relationship between information structure and intonation. Their results can be summarized in three main points: the intonation of topic and focus in English information structures is implemented as i) a pitch accent, ii) a tune (a pitch accent + (an) edge tone(s)), or iii) a boundary tone. The purpose of this paper is to study various intonational patterns of topic and focus in English information structures, using natural conversations. In this paper, the types of topics and foci are divided, based on contrastiveness. The topics are classified as five non-contrastive and four contrastive topics. The foci are classified as neutral focus, informational focus, and contrastive focus. The results show that the intonation of the topic in English information structures is mainly implemented as a pitch accent, except for the type of the pronoun topic (Lp) which is not implemented as a pitch accent or a tune. However, the intonation of the focus is implemented as a tune in the neutral focus (Fn) and as a pitch accent or a tune in the informational focus (Fi) and the contrastive focus (Fe). In our discussion and conclusion, we suggest that it is not always true that for the meaning of contrast, the topic or the focus is represented as a $L+H^{\ast}$ pitch accent, which has been the main contrastive intonation from earlier studies.

• 한국언어정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국언어정보학회 2000년도 하계 학술대회 발표 논문집
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• pp.62-70
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• 2000

• 한국언어정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국언어정보학회 2007년도 정기학술대회
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• pp.259-267
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• 2007

This paper sets forth the phenomenon of Contrastive Reduplication (CR) in English relevant to the notion of contrastive focus (CF). CF differs from other reduplicative patterns in that rather than the general intensive function, denotation of a more prototypical and default meaning of a lexical item appears from the reduplicated form resulting as a semantic contrast with the meaning of the non-reduplicated word. Thus, CR is in concordance with CF under the concept of contrastivity. However, much of the previous works on CF associated contrastivity with a manufacture of a set of alternatives taking a semantic approach. We claim that a recent discourse-pragmatic account takes advantage of explaining the vague contrast in informativeness of CR. Zimmermann's (2006) Contrastive Focus Hypothesis characterizes contrastivity in the sense of speaker's assumptions about the hearer's expectation of the focused element. This approach makes possible adaptation to CR and recovers the possible subsets of meaning of a reduplicated form in a more refined way showing contrastivity in informativeness. Additionally, CR in other languages along with similar set-limiting phenomenon in various languages will be introduced in general.

• 한국언어정보학회지:언어와정보
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.87-105
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• 2001

This paper categorizes currently available theories of focus into two major types a 'discourse structure approach'(DSA) and a 'sentence structure approach'(SSA) The former DSA is intended to refer to a type of approach that analyzes focus only in terms of the discourse structure in which a focused sentence occurs. The alternative semantics approach which is the most widely available theory of focus belongs to this The latter SSA is meant to refer to a type of theory that analyzes focus in terms of sentence-internal structure, This study supports the SSA be revealing some empirical problems of the DSA that arise is analyzing two different kinds of focus, the A-accented focus and the B-accented focus (contrastive topic), and provides a brief sketch of a comprehensive analysis of focus and contrastive topic.

• 음성과학
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• 제9권4호
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• pp.149-163
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• 2002

Focal parts of utterance can be determined by new/contrastive information, a focus particle, a contrastive topic marker, or a nominative case marker in Busan Korean. Among these factors, new or contrastive information is the most important element in determining the intonational nucleus of an utterance. However, unlike Seoul Korean, when a focus particle, a topic marker, or a case marker contributes to the placement of the most prominent peak of an utterance, the peak is on the noun to which they are attached. Moreover, the case marker-ga shows more prominent pitch on the preceding noun than the noun followed by the topic marker-nun when-ga is used as emphatic or contrastive. This is one of the major problems for Busan Korean users in commanding natural and fluent Seoul Korean intonation even if they use standard written form of Seoul Korean in their speech.

• 한국언어정보학회지:언어와정보
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• 제5권2호
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• pp.57-74
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• 2001

In this paper, I propose syntactic, semantic and pragmatic restrictions on the distribution of the contrastive topic marker‘-(n)un’in Korean. A contrastive topic is associated with another focus. The association with focus is subject to syntactic islands. On the other hand, there is no syntactic restriction between a phrase attached with‘-(n)un’and a focused expression within the ‘-(n)un’phrase itself. In this area there is a semantic requirement that the alternatives generated by a focused expression be maintained up to the phrase attached with‘-(n)un’. Finally, when‘-(n)un’is used in an embedded clause, the whole sentence becomes natural when the contrastive topic introduced by‘-(n)un’and its alternative contrastive topic, which is presupposed by the contrastive topic marker, jointly constitute a more complex topic which is related to the whole context. And exclusiveness facilitates the formation of the whole complex context.

• 음성과학
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.7-19
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• 2008

Information structure can be conveyed by prosodic structure (Poser 1984 for Japanese; Inkelas and Leben 1990 for Hausa; Cho 1990 for Korean; Hayes and Lahiri 1991 for Bengali; Selkirk and Shen 1990 for Shanghai Chinese). Different subfields of linguistics and different theoretical perspectives suggest many distinct types of information structure: topic vs. comment, focus vs. background. old vs. new information, etc. The purpose of this paper is to investigate phonetic realizations of focus and topic among these information structures in Korean. For this purpose, we conduct a phonetic experiment where we examine duration, pitch and dephrasing in focus and topic structures. We make four findings through this study. First, duration of 'nun' varies depending on the information structure of the following constituent. Second, the degree of accentual phrase-initial rising is larger in contrastive topic and focused phrases than in neutral phrases. Third, a contrastive topic phrase always constitutes an Intonation Phrase on its own. Fourth, dephrasing occurs variously depending on gender and the number of the syllables within a phrase.