Abstract
The present paper describes the accent system of the Gwangju dialect in Jeollanam-do. The accent system can be classified into the following three groups: (a) the initial high and a row of lows for the rest, (b) the first two syllables high with the rest low, and (c) the initial low with the high second syllable. However, it is closely related to the initial segments, namely to whether it has an initial syllable with a long vowel, or with a tense, aspirated, s, or h consonant. Strong tendencies can be seen in which the words with a initial long vowel syllable belong to (a), and words with a tense, aspirated, s, or h consonant initial belong to class (b), with the rest of the words belonging to class (c). In this paper, the reason why Gwangju dialect has a three-pattern system to distinguish the three accentual distinctions for every syllable, despite the fact that the accent system has strong tendencies connected to initial segments, will be explained in detail. In addition, different generations show peculiar fluctuation between and predilection for some accent types.
