Korean Phonology한국어Alex Wilson

Linguistic Field Methods

Road Map

Form rules for non-syllabic phonological rules in Korean Allophonic forms of the voiceless alveolar fricative [s] phoneme

Speech speed and how it affects [l / ɾ] allophonic outcomes

Vowel harmony

Doubled stop phenomena

Intervocalic voicing

Unreleased stops

Goal: To better understand Korean phonological processes as well as syllable structure

Road Map

Form syllabic phonological rules Onset limit Nasal onset Coda cluster limitations Assimilation How a syllable can be constructed for Korean Hangul

The phoneme /s/ and its allophones

The scripted character ㅅ is generally represented by the alveolar voiceless fricative phoneme. It occurs most often as allophonic [s], but also has other outcomes: /s/ [ʃ]/_i/j 마시다 / 마셨다 /s/ [t˺]/_# 다섯 /s/ [s] elsewhere

The [t˺] in the above example shows us that it is unreleased. Whenever nothing follows a final stop consonant in Korean, it’s always unreleased.

Lateral flap

The ㄹ phoneme is in dispute between [l] / [ɾ]. It appears to depend highly on the speed at which it’s pronounced by the consultant [l]=slower speech

[ɾ]=faster speech

Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony is a phonological process in which vowels (in this case, those that occur in adjacent affixes) will assimilate.

Korean appears to have evidence of vowel harmony through what we’ve seen so far according to past tense constructions. The vowel in the nucleus of the past tense affix will alternate between [a] and [ʌ] according to the vowel in the nucleus of the verbal stem.

Examples: 먹는다 [mʌŋnɯnda] 먹었다 [mʌgʌtta]

앉다 [anda] 앉았다 [anʤatta]

Doubled stops

Korean consonantal inventory includes three phonemes for all three bilabial, alveolar and velar plosive phonemes: singular unaspirated, singular aspirated and double-unaspirated. It’s difficult to distinguish exactly what these phonemes are, as they seem to only occur in Korean.

Minimal pairs:

방 [paŋ] “room”

빵 [ppaŋ] “bread”

Intervocalic voicing

Stops and affricates appear as only unvoiced within Korean’s phonological inventory. This is because voicing is an allophonic feature of Korean.

가 + 다 = 가 다 [ka] + [ta] = [kada]

개 + 가 = 개 가[ke] + [ka] = [kega]

/+obstruent –voice/ [+obstruent +voice]/V_V

Onsets

Korean onsets are limited to one consonant followed by one glide at the most. Anything less sonorant than a glide or semi-vowel is impossible for Korean syllables:

σ

C (rime)

V C

[m a l]

Nasal onset phenomenon

We were briefly introduced to a strange pronunciation phenomenon in Korean where nasal consonants in onsets begin to resemble stops, perhaps in quick-speech. 먹 [m/bʌk˺]?

너 [n/dʌ]?

It should be worth noting that this cannot occur with the velar nasal/plosives, as onsets cannot possibly consist of a velar nasal in this language, like in English.

Limit of consonants in codas

One consonant per coda maximum if the following syllable begins with another consonant,

Two consonants per coda maximum if the following syllable begins with a vowel.

Example: we’ve seen this in the verb for ‘sit’: 앉다 [anda] 앉았다 [anʤatta]

Consonant assimilation

Oftentimes we’ve seen two adjacent consonants (one in the coda of one syllable with another in the onset of the next) that have allophonic outcomes due to their difference in place of articulation: 먹 [mʌk˺] = verbal stem “eat” 먹는다 [mʌŋnɯnda], thus /k/ [ƞ]/_[+nasal, +consonantal]

Similarly, a glottal fricative within the coda of one syllable changes the plosive of a following from unaspirated to aspirated:

좋 [ʤoh] = “good” 좋다 [ʤot^ha], thus /t/ [t^h]/[h]_

Syllable Structure and Hangul

CV, CVC, V, VC Korean characters are naturally set up in a very convenient fashion

where each “block” of characters represents one syllable and each of the characters correspond to a certain sound

(C)

V

C

(C)

V

(C)V

C*C

Only pronounced if no consonant in next syllable’s onset

(C)V

C

(C)V

Thank you