The production and perception of High-toned [il] by young speakers of Seoul Korean

High-toned [il] refers to a sound change in progress, where young speakers of Seoul Korean produce [il] in a high pitch. Previous studies show that [il] meaning ‘one’ tends to be produced with a high pitch and [il] meaning ‘work’ to be produced with a low pitch. Using production and perception experiments, this study investigates if the pitch difference between the meaning categories of [il] is categorical or not and if the production and perception of High-toned [il] vary by speakers’ age and gender. We find that the production of [il] ‘one’ is higher than the other meaning categories, but speakers born in the 1990s show less of a pitch difference between [il] ‘one’ and [il] ‘work’ than those born in the 1980s. The results of the perception experiment reveal that listeners show a tendency of selecting [il] ‘one’ when pitch is high, but they do not show a categorical curve in the identification of [il], indicating that the pitch difference among the meaning categories is not categorical. Also, the general identification by listeners born in the 1990s was less categorical than that made by the 1980s group. Considering the speakers born in the 1990s show less pitch difference between [il] ‘one’ and [il] ‘work’, as well as a rather flat identification curve in the identification task, and as there is little gender difference in both production and perception of [il], we suggest the High-toned [il] phenomenon is reaching completion. Lastly, we discuss the potential outcome of High-toned [il], along with the tonogenesis-like sound change in Seoul Korean.