Phonetic Approach or Phonological Approach: Syntax-prosody Interface in Seoul Korean

There are two different approaches in studying mapping between syntactic structure and prosody, the 'phonetic approach' and the 'phonological approach'. An experiment to examine which approach is more valid was conducted. In the experiment, syntactically ambiguous Seoul Korean sentences in each of which a noun immediately after an adjective starts with either an H-segment (a segment which triggers the AP-initial H tone) or an L-segment (a segment other than H-segments) were recorded. by 3 Seoul Korean speakers. The F0 values in the syllables containing the consonants in question were then measured. The results show that interaction between the segment type and the branching structure is statistically significant. which suggests that it is difficult to use the phonetic .approach to generalize the relationship between syntax and prosody. Thus, it is concluded that the phonological approach is more valid.