초록
This article discusses the various vowel systems of the Korean language, with consideration of the element theory of Government phonology. Korean vowel systems are different from one another, according to region and/or age variations. The differences are mainly in (i) whether or not the two non-high front peripheral vowels undergo neutralization, and (ii) whether or not the system allows the two front interior vowels. Overall, Korean vowel systems are shifting toward a reduction in the number of vocalic items. It has been claimed that the shifts of the segmental system generally arise from the structural factors within the system. That is, the problem of phonological structure that can be seen in a vowel system is mainly due to the violation of the principle of vowel dispersion. However, we claim that the case of Korean is somewhat different. As for the evolution of Korean vowel systems, we claim that it has not occurred by violating the principle of vowel dispersion, but rather by the tendency of constraint; Korean does not allow two different dependency relations between elements contained in a segment. More concretely, the constraint that A-head non-high front and back peripheral vowels are not allowed is emerging as a trend in Korean phonology. Another trend in Korean is the constraint whereby the fusion of the two elements I and U are not permitted. The former excludes a vowel from the front peripheral space, and due to the latter the two vowels /y/ and /ø/ are not present in the list of Korean vowels.
키워드
Element Theory, Government Phonology, Korean vowel systems, shift of the segmental system, tendency of constraint
1. INTRODUCTION
In this paper, we discuss various Korean vowel systems in the framework of the element theory of Government phonology (henceforth, GP) originally proposed by
It can be said that the sound systems of human languages are largely well organized and thus remarkable regularities are found in them. Hence, most phonological theories attempt to explain the regularities in the systems of vowels and consonants in their own way. With respect to the changes of the Korean vowel system, we will show how this process derives from the constraints of the element theory.
We acknowledge that vowel systems are different from consonant systems in several ways. First, in most languages, the number of vowels is less than that of consonants. Second, vowel systems differ from consonantal systems in that the former are less multidimensional than the latter, in the sense of segmental composition. For example, following the UPSID, the UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database
On the other hand, it is said that the shifts of segmental systems generally arise from the structural factors within the system. In other words, the shifts of vowel systems are the results of adjustment or compensation for the so-called ‘defective’ vowel systems
In this article, we will analyze variations of the Korean vowel systems that are different according to age and/or region, and interpret phonological meaning in them based on element theory. More concretely, we will show why certain vowels undergo segmental change, such as neutralization or diphthongization, whereas others remain unchanged, and what the criteria for such differences are.
The remaining sections of this article are organized as follows: In section 2, we will first present seven different variations that can be seen in the course of the evolution of Korean vowel systems.
2. DATA AND THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
2.1. ASPECTS OF KOREAN VOWEL SYSTEMS
Korean mainly exhibits seven different vowel systems, with the number of vowels varying from six to ten. Many native speakers of Korean differ in production and/or perception of the number of vowels in its inventory, according to age and/or region. First, some phonologists
(1). CK: Ten-vowel system
It should be mentioned that the mid back unrounded vowel, unlike other vowels, has two different realizations according to its length. Generally speaking, the long one is realized as the mid-high vowel [ɤ:], corresponding to its front counterpart /e/. We see that this vowel frequently alternates with the high back unrounded vowel / ɯ / in daily conversation, as in the word
We have two more systems that are spoken by older people, namely OK1 and OK2, and both of which consist of nine vowels, as is shown in
(2).
The system in
On the other hand, the system OK2, consisting of /ɑ, i, u, e, o, ɛ, ɔ, ɯ,
Let us now consider the system spoken by the relatively younger groups. This system (henceforth, YK) consists of seven vowels as shown in
(3). YK: Seven-vowel system
In this system, as mentioned above, the two vowels /e/ and / ɛ / are neutralized to either mid-high vowel /e/ or mid vowel /
There is another system that is valid only in the southeast region in the Korean Peninsula. This system (henceforth, SK) consists of five peripheral vowels (two each at front and back, and one low), with one back interior vowel / ɯ /, as shown in
(4). SK: Six-vowel system
So far we have discussed the systems spoken in South Korea. There is one initiative system (CK) with a ten-vowel system and two OK systems, each with a nine-vowel system. We also have YK with a seven-vowel system and SK with a six-vowel system. Over time, the vowel systems of South Korean are evolving from the ten-vowel system to a seven-vowel system via nine-vowel systems.
On the other hand, North Korea has two variations (NK1 and NK2) of vowel systems according to age group. Some phonologists
(5). NK1: Eight-vowel system
This system contains six peripheral vowels as in the ten-vowel system, but the two front interior vowels, /y/ and /ø/, have disappeared. This system is also recognized as a variation of the standard pronunciation of Korean vowels. However, this system is regarded as a kind of transition system from the tenvowel system to the seven-vowel system, and thus has almost disappeared, just like CK (ten-vowel system), at least in South Korea.
In contrast, NK2 spoken by the young group is a six-vowel system consisting only of peripheral vowels / ɑ , i, u, e, o, ɛ /, as in
(6). NK2: Six-vowel system
As can be seen in
There are two main points and some minor points in the evolution of South Korean vowel systems. The two main points are (i) whether or not the two front rounded vowels, /y, ø/, are allowed to appear in the system, and (ii) whether or not the two front non-high peripheral vowels, /e/ and / ɛ /, are merged into a single vowel. Simply put, the major trends of the evolution of Korean vowel systems are the loss of /y/ and /ø/, and a neutralization of /e/ and / ɛ /.
We also have to mention some minor points that are unique to particular regions. First, in the SK spoken in the southeast region, the vowel /
2.2. BASIC CONCEPTS OF ELEMENT THEORY
The representational system for segments in GP differs from that of other theories in many ways. All phonological segments are composed either of elements or a fusion of elements.
(7). Elements for vowels
Languages having five vowels mainly consist of the above three vowels and the two additional vowels /e, o/
(8).
The regularity of vowel patterns that is revealed through three- and five-vowel systems is one of the main topics that every phonological theory ought to explain. Several versions of the dispersion theory (Lijencrants & Lindblom, 1972;
In the following section, we will analyze the variations of Korean vowel systems in the course of explaining dependency relations between elements.
5 We accept the definition of
6 Strictly speaking, the utterance with [ɤ:] is much more common.
7 According to
8 We would like to note that two non-high back peripheral vowels can only be seen in the system of OK3.
9 Note that
10 According to
11 For a detailed discussion on element theory, see
12 See
3. ANALYSIS OF KOREAN VOWEL SYSTEMS
According to
(9).
In the asymmetrical relations
(10).
Let us now consider Korean vowel systems. Though the vowel systems of South Korea show a trend of merging the two vowels /e/ and / ɛ / into /e/(or /e/), there are systems such as CK with a ten-vowel system and the OK2 (of Jeju Island) with a nine-vowel system, which still distinguish the two vowels as being separate. What is observed is that both representations in
The question is why South Korean allows system shifts from the ones with / ɛ / to the ones without. One could argue that the system shift results in a wellarranged system in the sense of dispersion. That is to say, having three peripheral vowels at front but two peripheral vowels at back is asymmetric or skewed, thus, requiring certain types of complementary behavior for a balanced system. They could argue with dispersion theory that losing a front peripheral vowel is the result of an adjustment of the unbalanced system. In other words, the adjusted new systems, such as the YK seven-vowel system, in which /e/ and / ɛ / are neutralized, can now be said to be well spaced by having two vowels each at the front and back peripheral spaces.
However, the problem with this kind of account is that the same shift cannot be found in the course of evolution from NK1 to NK2; both of which seem to have skewed peripheral vowels at front and back.
We see that there are counterexamples against the dispersion theory. For instance, it is claimed that dispersion theory cannot properly explain the fact that the systems with /i, e, a, u/ are favored over the systems with /i, a, o, u/
(11). Vowel spaces of Korean and English
By the same token, the arguments of
As for the neutralization of the non-high front peripheral vowels of Korean, we would like to claim that this process is not a matter of the dispersion or adjustment of an unbalanced system, but rather that it is a matter of whether the system allows two different dependency relations between the same elements in compound vowels as in
The two nine-vowel systems serve as additional evidence for this claim. What we see from these two systems is that the two non-high front peripheral vowels are available only when the system has the counterparts at back. In other words, if the system allows two different dependency relations at back then it has two nonhigh peripheral vowels at front as well as back, and if the system does not allow such relations at back then only one non-peripheral vowel is available, not only at back but also at front. The system OK2, where /e/ and / ɛ /, and /o/ and / ɔ / are present, is an example of the former, and OK1, in which only front vowels /e/ and /o/ are available, can be an example of the latter. Korean vowel systems are now undergoing a change toward a prohibition of having two different dependency relations.
More concretely, we claim that Korean shows a tendency to have a constraint that does not allow non-high front and back peripheral vowels in which the element A plays the role of head. Thus, segments having the following representation are excluded from the list of Korean vowels.
(12).
Let us now consider whether the same constraint is applicable for the case of SK with a six-vowel system. We claim that the fact that the disappearance of /
We can find that the representation of /ə/ (or /
The fact that representation
(13).
(14).
We can now have general aspects of languages that have an equal number of front and back peripheral vowels with one compulsory low vowel according to their constraints, as in
(15). Vowel systems according to the constraints on peripheral vowels
We now face the questions of how and why the system YK, having seven vowels, contains / ɑ / and /
Kwak’s argument differs from ours in its proposed reason for the system shift; he attributes the system shift to the asymmetry of the seven-vowel system. He claims that the YK system of Korean has a 2║3-2 configuration that is skewed, and thus could change to a well-balanced six-vowel system such as the SK system, which has the configuration of 2║2-2.
(16).
However, we do not see why the system
Let us now finally consider the two front interior vowels, /y/ and /ø/. These vowels are visible only in two systems, namely CK and OK1. This means that these two vowels have almost disappeared from the list of Korean monothongs. As mentioned above, they are pronounced either as diphthongs or vowels with no roundness. For these phenomena, we claim that Korean has a trend of avoiding the combination of the two elements I and U. Actually, the fusion of I with U is not so preferred universally, simply because the combination of two properties, frontness and roundness, is far from the so-called economy of pronunciation. As
(17).
13 The pictures shown below are replotted from
14 According to
15 See
16 It should be noted that @ contributes nothing to the representation in which it occurs as a dependant; thus, the representation
17 The symbol ║ is a mark for the boundary for front vs. back vowels, and the numbers on the left refer to the numbers of front unrounded vowels, and the numbers of the first and second rows on the right respectively refer to the numbers of back unrounded and round vowels.
4. CONCLUSION
So far we have discussed the various vowel systems of Korean that are seen in the course of diachronic changes. Korean vowel systems differ one from another mainly on (i) whether or not the two non-high front peripheral vowels undergo neutralization, and (ii) whether or not the system allows the two front interior vowels. The main flow of the Korean vowel system shift is toward reducing the number of vocalic items. Thus, the number of vowels is decreasing from ten to seven, or even to six. That is, a front peripheral vowel and the two front interior vowels have disappeared from the vocalic list in six- and seven-vowel systems.
As for this evolution of Korean vowel systems, we claim that it is not caused by the problem of space division, which violates the principle of vowel dispersion, but rather by the tendency of the constraint that Korean does not allow two different dependency relations between the elements contained in a segment. More concretely, the constraint that A-head non-high front and back peripheral vowels are not allowed is emerging as a trend in Korean phonology. In addition, there is also a trend in Korean to have the constraint whereby the two elements I and U are not allowed to be fused. The former excludes a vowel from the front peripheral space, and it is because of the latter that the two vowels /y/ and /ø/ are not present in the list of Korean vowels. However, whether or not the trend of not allowing two different dependency relations applies to the (back) interior vowels cannot be fully assured, because the seven-vowel system, which is widespread across the country, is considered as being solid for the time being. Thus, the conclusion that the vowel /
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2 We borrow notation such as UPSID317 fromSchwartz, Boë, and Abry (2007) .
3 In this paper, following UPSID(Maddieson, 1984) and Heo (2011) , we assume that the vowels of Korean are classified as having one of five different heights: high, mid-high, mid, mid-low, or low. We would like to note that vowels described as being ‘mid’ lie between the mid-high and midlow positions.
4 Many Korean phonologists use / ɨ / and /ə/ rather than / ɯ / and /ɤ/, not because of the accuracy of the sounds but because of the convention , while still classifying them as back vowels. The same is true in the case of / ɑ /, thus, it is normally transcribed as /a/.