Case Drop and Prosodic Structure in Korean

The goal of this paper is to examine how Case Drop (the drop of the case markers) correlates with the prosodic structure in Korean. On the assumption that intervocalic Lenis Stop Voicing (LSV) applies within the domain of the Accentual Phrase (AP), voicing analyses are performed on intervocalic lenis stop consonants before and after Case Drop. A statistical analysis reveals that the drop of the nominative and accusative case markers significantly alter the AP structure. Pitch values will then be extracted to verify that such changes in the AP structure conform to the pitch properties proposed for the AP (Jun 1993, 1998). The results show that the AP structure suggested by LSV does not always coincide with that imposed by the pitch properties.