On the prosody of reported speech in Seoul Korean
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/2564-2855.56Keywords:
prosody, reported speech, Korean, recursivity, syntax-phonology interfaceAbstract
This paper investigates the use of prosodic cues to indicate reported speech (RS) in Seoul Korean. Previous research on reported speech prosody shows that speakers use a variety of prosodic cues to delineate the boundaries of reported speech. Korean differs from many of the languages in the RS prosody literature in the framing of RS segments, in that the RS segment is embedded in a structure with both an initial and end frame, and a quotative morpheme follows the RS segment. The results show that in direct speech examples, two prosodic boundaries are marked, with the onset of the direct speech being indicated by a strong boundary, and the offset by a weak boundary. Indirect speech, in contrast, only has one prosodic boundary marked. The location of these prosodic boundaries as well as their strength can be predicted by the type of φ-phrase and its relationship to adjacent φ-phrases.
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