Literature Review Researchers have examined the apparent relationship between a prosodic phrasing and the post obstruents

tensification(hereafter POT), where a phonetic reduction triggers the phenomena.(Jun 1993; Sohn 1999; Shin and Cha 2003; Kang 2003) Empirical studies supports this claim(Jun 1993, 1998; Shin 1999). Jun(1993) proposed the four factors that affect to prosodic structure which is not isomorphic to syntactic structure, including the speech rate, phonological weight, focus, and semantic weight. In Jun(1993)s idea, tensification necessarily occurs to the post obstruent when the factors cause the phonological deletion of AP boundary. Shin(1999) articulated the fact that what makes distinction the AP boundaries is not VOT but the aspirated noises in the post obstruents because the identical VOTs show different productions in part, while the greater part agreed with VOT. In the research, the aspirated noises were unanimously observed in the post obstruent that did not exhibit the tensification. Those studies treated the post -l tensification(hereafter PLT) in relative construction as either an identical event or with no attention to POT. However POT is not alike to PLT phonetically and syntactically. First of all, POT is supported by the articulatory evidence that the glottal closure from the pre-obstruent produces the air pressure to contribute to the tensification(Kim-Renault 1974:130; Sohn 1987:242) and/or the tensed vocal fold from the pre-obstruent is assimilated to the post-obstruent(Ahn 1999:150; Yang 2001:91; Cho 2006:178). The Korean lateral -l is not involved into the tenseness of the vocal fold and/or the closeness of the glottis, whereas the articulation of -l cannot stop the air in the oral but releases it through tongues lateral. The Korean nasal -n, the corresponding relativizer, also causes the air to release through the pharynx to nasal cavity.In this case, the relativizer -n does not entail the post-obstruents tensification of the head noun due to the air discharge. Second, POT studies(Kim-Renault 1974; Multiple studies have examined Korean tensification from phonetic approach to syntactic-semantic approach and to socio-cognitive approach. Phonetic and phonological approach Lee(2007) Rhee(2007) Sohn(1999) Prosodic approach Jun(1993) Shin(1999) Kang(2003:498) Diachronic approach Kim(1999) Semantic-cognitive approach Choi(1981) Oh(1998) Syntactic approach

Bae(2008) Jun(1996) generalizes factors affecting the Korean prosodic phrasing, saying that prosodic structure is not isomorphic to the syntactic structure while it can account for that fundamentally. She indicated the non-syntactic factors as the speech rate, phonological weight, focus, and semantic weight . Among the factors the phonological weight is critical to explain the grammaticalization of -(u)l because the loss of AP(Accentual Phrase) boundary involves the tensification of the head noun. In this case the loss of AP is directly related to the phonological reduction in the grammaticalization theory(Haspelmath, ibid) The AP boundaries of the relative construction constituted with the preceding verb and head noun vary depending on the phonological weight. When the head noun is a monosyllable or dysyllables, it tends to form an AP with the relative clause. However when the head noun takes four syllables or more, the AP is separated into two(Jun, 1996:180) Shin and Cha(2003) categorized the Korean tensification: (a) post obstruent tensification, (b) post nasal tensification, (c) post relativizer -(u)l tensification, and (d) sino-Korean tensification. The post relativizer -(u)l tensification occurs in a AP as in (6), including the post obstruents tensification as in (7). (3)a. mek-ul pap% [mekulppap], nol teyka% epsta%%[noltteka epstta] b. mek-ul% kokwuma%[mekul kokwuma], ollakal% tongsan%[olagal ttongsan] (4)a. paptotwuk%[papttotwuk], nohso%[nosso] b. cikcep kwanlihanun%[cikccepkkwanlihanun] Commonly, both post obstruents tensification and post relativizer -(u)l tensification are conditioned on the involvement of a AP. The post obstruent tensification can be explained with the phonetic description, regarding the increase of the oral air from pre-obstruent to produce the glottal closure. The release of the compressed air for the following obstruent produces the equivalence of the constriction of the glottis or the tenseness. In other words, longer closure duration contributes to tensification(Lee, 2006). The uniqueness of the post relativizer -(u)l tenstification, however, can be found through the syntactic comparison with the objective marker -(u)l and the correspondent relativizer -n. The syntactic barrier stops tensifying even under the one AP condition and under the same phonological environment, as in (5)a. Now the phonetic barrier keeps post -n relativizer from tensifying because the nasal n cause the air release through the pharynx to nasal cavity. The -(u)l relativizer, however, cannot also stop the air in the oral and release it through the tongues lateral similar to the nasal n. This gives a critical question why the -(u)l relativizer causes the tensification to be researched in the future,. Kim(1999) investigated the tensification of the post relativizer -(u)l diachronically. He argued the arbitrary nature of the phenomena which is decided by the dependency of the head noun, the frequency, and the familiarity to the speakers. Once the cohesiveness of verbal and head noun generates a single phonological unit, and then the head noun becomes tensified. However this is conditional morphophonologically, occurring in the process of combination between the two. The speakers cognitive preference to the particular words presumably seems to make free from the tensfication. It can be said that there are continua from unconditional tensification through variables to arbitrary tensification such as: ip-ul kes(wear-RL thing) [ipulkkes/*ipulkes] -ul sikumchi(eat-RL spinach)[mekul ?sikumchi/?ssikumchi] -unconditional -variable

-ul kaltay(bind-RL reed)[mwukkul kaltay/*kkaltay]

-arbitrary

The synthesis of Jun(1996), Shin(2003) and Kim(1999) suggests that the tensification of the relativizer -(u)l is universally realized depending on the AP boundaries conditioned by the phonological weight which is the number of the syllables. However there are exceptions decided by the speakers cognition. I hypothesize that the cognition of the speakers is related to the grammaticalization of -(u)l.