Prosodic Marking of Second Occurrence Focus in Korean

doi:10.18627/jslg.42.1.202605.99

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2026 Vol.42, Issue 1 Preview Page

Research Article

Prosodic Marking of Second Occurrence Focus in Korean: Park, Seong Eun¹, Son, Gayeon^2*; ¹Chungbuk National University
²Kwangwoon University

31 May 2026. pp. 99-112

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Abstract

This study examines the phonetic realization of second occurrence focus (SOF) in Korean and its implications for the prosodic phonology-pragmatics interface. First occurrence focus (FOF) and SOF in controlled discourse contexts were obtained from a production experiment. Acoustic measures of duration, F0, and intensity were statistically analyzed. The results show that SOF lacks robust prominence in F0 and intensity, though limited durational differences and subtle F0 variation emerge under finer analyses. The presence of the focus particle –man also affects pitch realization. These findings suggest that SOF in Korean is neither fully prosodically marked nor purely pragmatic, but instead reflects gradient, language-specific interactions between prosody, morphosyntax, and information structure.

Keywords

second occurrence focus

Korean prosody

postnuclear position

information structure

interface

References

Beaver, D. and Clark, B. Z. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 10.1002/9781444304176
Beaver, D., Clark, B. Z., Flemming, E., Jaeger, T. F., and Wolters, M. 2007. When semantics meets phonetics: Acoustical studies of second-occurrence focus. Language 83.2, 245-276. 10.1353/lan.2007.0053
Bishop, J. 2008. The effect of position on the realization of second occurrence focus. 9th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, ISCA Archive, http://www.isca-speech.org/archive/interspeech_2008. 10.21437/Interspeech.2008-278
Chomsky, N. 1976. Conditions on rules of grammar. Linguistic Analysis 2.4, 303-351.
Cole, J. 2026. Prosody and information structure. Annual Review Linguistics 12, 387-406. 10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011724-121524
Féry, C. and Samek-Lodovici, V. 2006. Focus projection and prosodic prominence in nested foci. Language 82.1, 131-150. 10.1353/lan.2006.0031
Howell, J. 2011. Second occurrence focus and the acoustics of prominence. In R. Folli and C. Ulbrich (eds.), Interfaces in Linguistics: New Research Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 278-298.
Ishihara, S. and Féry, C. 2006. Phonetic correlates of second occurrence focus. In S. Ishihara, M. Schmitz and A. Schwarz (eds.), Interdisciplinary Studies of Information Structure: Working Papers of the SFB 632. Potsdam: University of Potsdam.
Ishihara, S. and Féry, C. 2009. The phonology of second occurrence focus. Journal of Linguistics 45.2, 285-313. 10.1017/S0022226709005702
Jun, S.-A. 2003. Prosodic phrasing and attachment preferences. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 32.2, 219-249. 10.1023/A:1022452408944
Jun, S.-A. 2005. Prosodic typology. In S.-A. Jun (ed.), Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 430-458. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199249633.003.0016
Jun, S.-A. and Lee, H.-J. 1998. Phonetic and phonological markers of contrastive focus in Korean. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing Vol. 4. Sydney, Australia, 1295-1298. 10.21437/ICSLP.1998-151
Kadmon, N. 2001. Formal pragmatics: Semantics, pragmatics, presupposition and focus. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kayne, R. 1998. Overt vs. covert movement. Syntax 1.2, 128-191. 10.1111/1467-9612.00006
Krifka, M. 2006. Association with focus phrases. In V. Molinár and S. Winkler (eds.), The Architecture of Focus. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 105-136. 10.1515/9783110922011.105
Lee, Y.-C. 2012. Prosodic correlation between the focusing adverb ozik ‘only’ and focus/givenness in Korean. Journal of Speech Sciences 29.2, 85-111. 10.20396/joss.v2i2.15034
Lee, Y.-C. 2017. Prosodic focus in Seoul Korean and South Kyungsang Korean. Linguistic Research 34.1, 133-161. 10.17250/khisli.34.1.201703.005
Lee, Y.-C., Nambu, S., and Cho, S. 2018. Focus prosody of telephone numbers in Tokyo Japanese. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 143.5. EL343-EL346. 10.1121/1.5037360
Lee, Y.-C., Wang, B., Chen, S. Adda-Decker, M., Amelot, A., Nambu, S., and Liberman, M. 2015. A crosslinguistic study of prosodic focus. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 4754-4758. 10.1109/ICASSP.2015.7178873
Lee, Y.-C. and Xu, Y. 2010. Phonetic realization of contrastive focus in Korean. Proceedings from the 5th International Conference on Speech Prosody. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/yi/yispapers/Lee_Xu_SP2010.pdf. 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2010-81
Liu, J., Xu, Y., and Lee, Y.-C. 2019. Post-focus compression is not automatically transferred from Korean to L2 English. Phonetics and Speech Sciences 11.2, 15-21. 10.13064/KSSS.2019.11.2.015
Partee, B. 1999. Focus, quantification, and semantics-pragmatics issues. In P. Bosch and R. van der Sandt (eds.), Focus: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 213-231.
R Core Team. 2017. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. (http://www.r-project.org).
Roberts, C. 1996. Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In J. H. Yoon and A. Kathol (eds.), Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics: Papers in Semantics 49. Columbus, OH : Ohio State University, 91-136.
Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1.1, 75-116. 10.1007/BF02342617
Schwarzschild, R. 1997. Why some foci must associate. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, ms.
Schwarzschild, R. 1999. Givenness, avoidF and other constraints on the place of accents. Natural Language Semantics 7.2, 141-177. 10.1023/A:1008370902407
Selkirk, E. O. 1995. Sentence prosody: Intonation, stress and phrasing. In J. A. Goldsmith (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 550-569.
Selkirk, E. O. 2002a. Contrastive FOCUS vs. presentational focus: Prosodic evidence from right node raising in English. In Speech Prosody 2002: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Speech Prosody. Aix-en-Provence, 643-646. 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2002-146
Selkirk, E. O. 2002b. The syntax-phonology interface. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Section 3.9, Article 23. Elsevier.
Selkirk, E. O. 2008. Contrastive focus, givenness, and the unmarked status of “discourse-new”. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55.3-4, 1-16. 10.1556/ALing.55.2008.3-4.8
Xu, Y. and Xu, C. X. 2005. Phonetic realization of focus in English declarative intonation. Journal of Phonetics 33, 159-197. 10.1016/j.wocn.2004.11.001
Xu, Y. and Wang, M. 2009. Organizing syllables into groups - Evidence from F0 and duration patterns in Mandarin. Journal of Phonetics 37.4. 502-520. 10.1016/j.wocn.2009.08.003 23482405 PMC3589580

Information

Publisher :The Modern Linguistic Society of Korea
Publisher(Ko) :한국현대언어학회
Journal Title :The Journal of Studies in Language
Journal Title(Ko) :언어연구
Volume : 42
No :1
Pages :99-112
DOI :https://doi.org/10.18627/jslg.42.1.202605.99

[1] Beaver, D. and Clark, B. Z. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 10.1002/9781444304176

[2] Beaver, D., Clark, B. Z., Flemming, E., Jaeger, T. F., and Wolters, M. 2007. When semantics meets phonetics: Acoustical studies of second-occurrence focus. Language 83.2, 245-276. 10.1353/lan.2007.0053

[3] Bishop, J. 2008. The effect of position on the realization of second occurrence focus. 9th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, ISCA Archive, http://www.isca-speech.org/archive/interspeech_2008. 10.21437/Interspeech.2008-278

[4] Chomsky, N. 1976. Conditions on rules of grammar. Linguistic Analysis 2.4, 303-351.

[5] Cole, J. 2026. Prosody and information structure. Annual Review Linguistics 12, 387-406. 10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011724-121524

[6] Féry, C. and Samek-Lodovici, V. 2006. Focus projection and prosodic prominence in nested foci. Language 82.1, 131-150. 10.1353/lan.2006.0031

[7] Howell, J. 2011. Second occurrence focus and the acoustics of prominence. In R. Folli and C. Ulbrich (eds.), Interfaces in Linguistics: New Research Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 278-298.

[8] Ishihara, S. and Féry, C. 2006. Phonetic correlates of second occurrence focus. In S. Ishihara, M. Schmitz and A. Schwarz (eds.), Interdisciplinary Studies of Information Structure: Working Papers of the SFB 632. Potsdam: University of Potsdam.

[9] Ishihara, S. and Féry, C. 2009. The phonology of second occurrence focus. Journal of Linguistics 45.2, 285-313. 10.1017/S0022226709005702

[10] Jun, S.-A. 2003. Prosodic phrasing and attachment preferences. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 32.2, 219-249. 10.1023/A:1022452408944

[11] Jun, S.-A. 2005. Prosodic typology. In S.-A. Jun (ed.), Prosodic Typology: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 430-458. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199249633.003.0016

[12] Jun, S.-A. and Lee, H.-J. 1998. Phonetic and phonological markers of contrastive focus in Korean. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing Vol. 4. Sydney, Australia, 1295-1298. 10.21437/ICSLP.1998-151

[13] Kadmon, N. 2001. Formal pragmatics: Semantics, pragmatics, presupposition and focus. Oxford: Blackwell.

[14] Kayne, R. 1998. Overt vs. covert movement. Syntax 1.2, 128-191. 10.1111/1467-9612.00006

[15] Krifka, M. 2006. Association with focus phrases. In V. Molinár and S. Winkler (eds.), The Architecture of Focus. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 105-136. 10.1515/9783110922011.105

[16] Lee, Y.-C. 2012. Prosodic correlation between the focusing adverb ozik ‘only’ and focus/givenness in Korean. Journal of Speech Sciences 29.2, 85-111. 10.20396/joss.v2i2.15034

[17] Lee, Y.-C. 2017. Prosodic focus in Seoul Korean and South Kyungsang Korean. Linguistic Research 34.1, 133-161. 10.17250/khisli.34.1.201703.005

[18] Lee, Y.-C., Nambu, S., and Cho, S. 2018. Focus prosody of telephone numbers in Tokyo Japanese. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 143.5. EL343-EL346. 10.1121/1.5037360

[19] Lee, Y.-C., Wang, B., Chen, S. Adda-Decker, M., Amelot, A., Nambu, S., and Liberman, M. 2015. A crosslinguistic study of prosodic focus. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 4754-4758. 10.1109/ICASSP.2015.7178873

[20] Lee, Y.-C. and Xu, Y. 2010. Phonetic realization of contrastive focus in Korean. Proceedings from the 5th International Conference on Speech Prosody. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/yi/yispapers/Lee_Xu_SP2010.pdf. 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2010-81

[21] Liu, J., Xu, Y., and Lee, Y.-C. 2019. Post-focus compression is not automatically transferred from Korean to L2 English. Phonetics and Speech Sciences 11.2, 15-21. 10.13064/KSSS.2019.11.2.015

[22] Partee, B. 1999. Focus, quantification, and semantics-pragmatics issues. In P. Bosch and R. van der Sandt (eds.), Focus: Linguistic, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 213-231.

[23] R Core Team. 2017. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. (http://www.r-project.org).

[24] Roberts, C. 1996. Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In J. H. Yoon and A. Kathol (eds.), Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics: Papers in Semantics 49. Columbus, OH : Ohio State University, 91-136.

[25] Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1.1, 75-116. 10.1007/BF02342617

[26] Schwarzschild, R. 1997. Why some foci must associate. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, ms.

[27] Schwarzschild, R. 1999. Givenness, avoidF and other constraints on the place of accents. Natural Language Semantics 7.2, 141-177. 10.1023/A:1008370902407

[28] Selkirk, E. O. 1995. Sentence prosody: Intonation, stress and phrasing. In J. A. Goldsmith (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 550-569.

[29] Selkirk, E. O. 2002a. Contrastive FOCUS vs. presentational focus: Prosodic evidence from right node raising in English. In Speech Prosody 2002: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Speech Prosody. Aix-en-Provence, 643-646. 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2002-146

[30] Selkirk, E. O. 2002b. The syntax-phonology interface. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Section 3.9, Article 23. Elsevier.

[31] Selkirk, E. O. 2008. Contrastive focus, givenness, and the unmarked status of “discourse-new”. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55.3-4, 1-16. 10.1556/ALing.55.2008.3-4.8

[32] Xu, Y. and Xu, C. X. 2005. Phonetic realization of focus in English declarative intonation. Journal of Phonetics 33, 159-197. 10.1016/j.wocn.2004.11.001

[33] Xu, Y. and Wang, M. 2009. Organizing syllables into groups - Evidence from F0 and duration patterns in Mandarin. Journal of Phonetics 37.4. 502-520. 10.1016/j.wocn.2009.08.003 23482405 PMC3589580

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