Phonetics and Speech Sciences (말소리와 음성과학)

Korean Society of Speech Sciences (한국음성학회)
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Does phrase-initial denasalization extend beyond Seoul Korean? Evidence from North Gyeongsang Korean

  • Mingi Park (Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language, Hanyang University) ;
  • Jiyoung Jang (Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language, Hanyang University) ;
  • Sahyang Kim (Department of English Education, Hongik University) ;
  • Taehong Cho (Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language, Hanyang University)
  • Received : 2025.02.18
  • Accepted : 2025.03.12
  • Published : 2025.03.31
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Abstract

This study examines the prosodic and sociolinguistic conditioning of word-initial nasal consonant denasalization in North Gyeongsang (NG) Korean, focusing on prosodic position and gender. Nasal duration and subsequent vowel nasalization (A1-P0) in word-initial syllables of /mami/ were analyzed across two prosodic boundary conditions (IP-initial, IP-medial) for 26 speakers in their 20s. Results indicate that while NG Korean exhibits phrase-initial nasal reduction, it does not show clear evidence of an advancing denasalization process. Unlike Seoul Korean, where denasalization appears to be phonologizing, NG Korean demonstrates a more moderate reduction pattern, with no significant gender differences. This suggests NG Korean remains phonologically conservative, likely due to both sociolinguistic resistance to phonetic innovation and its head/edge-prominence prosodic structure, which may mitigate extreme domain-initial strengthening effects. While NG Korean's lexical pitch accent system may constrain segmental reduction, mechanisms for its interaction with vowel nasalization remain unclear. Future research should examine whether tonal specifications influence coarticulatory nasalization and how NG Korean's trajectory aligns with the ongoing sound change in Seoul Korean. Nevertheless, these findings provide insight into how prosodic structure, dialectal variation, and sociolinguistic factors shape sound change across Korean dialects.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

We thank the North Gyeongsang Korean speakers who participated in the experiment. We are also grateful to the editorial team and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive feedback. This research was funded by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea under Grant No. NRF-2020S1A5A2A03042969. Additional support was provided by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea under Grant No. NRF-2021S1A5C2A02086884.

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