한국어 모음조화의 약화 현상에 대한 정보이론 기반 분석

박선우(Park, Sunwoo) 한국음운론학회 2016 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.22 No.3

This study investigates the declination of vowel harmony in Korean from the 15th century to the 18th century. Between the 15th and the 18th century, restructuring of the vowel system resulting from vowel shift brought about diachronic declination of palatal vowel harmony between front and back vowels. Since the 15th century, vowel harmony in Korean has been in steady decline. Noting this, the present paper examines the frequencies of vowel harmony from the 15th to the 18th century. To do so, it analyzes a historical Korean corpus from the perspective of Information Theory, measuring the quantitative analysis index of vowel harmony by the information-theoretic notions of ‘positive logarithm’ and ‘mutual information.’ Mutual information (MI) between the vowels in autosegmental tiers leads to two findings about the declination of vowel harmony in Korean. Firstly, there were two sharp declines of vowel harmony in the historical Korean corpus. There was first a declination between the 15<SUP>th</SUP> and 16<SUP>th</SUP> centuries, and the second declination occurred between the 17<SUP>th</SUP> and 18<SUP>th</SUP> centuries. Secondly, the prohibition of non-harmonic vowels is more effective than the preference for harmonic vowels in Korean vowel harmony.

중세한국어 모음조화의 양상에 대하여

박선우 한국음운론학회 2019 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.25 No.1

This study investigates aspects of vowel harmony in Late Middle Korean from the 15th century to the 16th century. Since the 10th century, restructuring of the vowel system resulting from vowel shift brought about the diachronic declination of palatal vowel harmony between front and back vowels. Since the 15th century, vowel harmony in Korean has been in a steady decline. To examine the frequencies of vowel harmony from the 15th to the 16th century, I analyze a historical Korean corpus from the perspective of Information Theory, measuring the quantitative analysis index of vowel harmony by means of the information-theoretic notions of positive logarithm and mutual information. Mutual information (MI) between the vowels in autosegmental tiers leads to three findings regarding vowel harmony in Late Middle Korean. First, the preference for harmonic positive vowels in the Korean vowel system is more effective than the preference for harmonic negative vowels. Second, if the preceding vowel is a diphthong beginning with a /w/ glide, there is little effect of vowel harmony in Middle Korean. Finally, the vowel harmony between monophthongs is more regular than that between diphthongs or triphthongs.

한국어 단일어 내의 모음조화 연구 -구성원소 이론을 바탕으로-

노채환 한국언어문화교육학회 2017 언어와 문화 Vol.13 No.2

Roh, Chaehwan. 2017. A study on the Korean Vowel Harmony in a word, based on the Element Theory. The language and Culture 13-2: 53-74. This thesis is aiming to analyze phonological phenomena of Korean vowel harmony in a word. The theoretical ground for the vowel harmony is presented in terms of the Element theory. Based on this, the internal structure of vowels of Korean is presented. Vowel harmony in a word occurs mainly on ideophones and color words. And these phenomena are caused by the mechanism of generating a new word reflecting the differentiation of the word nuance through the change of the vowel. The underlying forms of vowel harmony are /ə/ and /u/. And the harmony feature is the element A. The element A is first combined with first nucleus, which changes its vowel value and then this vowel harmony feature is spreaded onto other followed nucleus. This spreading changes vowel of nucleus by strengthening element composition. (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)

Gradient vowel cooccurrence restrictions in monomorphemic native Korean roots

홍성훈 한국음운론학회 2010 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.16 No.2

This paper presents evidence for gradient vowel cooccurrence restrictions holding in the monomorphemic roots of the native Korean words. Noting that vowel cooccurrence often emerges as a result of vowel harmony and vowel harmony was once active in Korean, I examine root-internal vowels to see if they conform to the general patterns of the vowel harmony. For this examination, I extract multisyllable words registered as monomorphemic and native in Pyo-jun-gug-eo-dai-sa-jeon (The National Institute of the Korean Language, 2001). I then measure the degree to which vowels occur together utilizing the metric of O/E, the ‘observed’ frequency divided by the ‘expected’ frequency (Pierrehumbert 1993). The O/E values obtained between two vowels in the first three syllables of the multisyllable words are compared to the possible and impossible patterns of the vowel harmony. The results show that although not absolute, vowel cooccurrence restrictions similar to those enforced by the vowel harmony hold in a gradient manner within a monomorphemic native root in Korean.

Compounds and stem domains in Northern Dagara

Lee, Seunghun Julio 한국아프리카학회 2013 한국아프리카학회지 Vol.39 No.-

Dagara vowel harmony provides positive evidence that stem domains should be considered as part of the prosodic hierarchy. This paper complements previous studies that have argued for the presence of stem domains based on verbal reduplication (Downing 2001) and distribution of H tone (Jenks and Rose 2011) among others. Further evidence for a prosodic domain based on the stem comes from vowel harmony in Dagara, which displays opposite directionalities: left-to-right (progressive) harmony in suffixations and right-to-left (regressive) harmony in compounds. A constraint-based analysis of root-controlled vowel harmony shows how this directional asymmetry is an example of a stem-domain sensitive phenomenon. Roots in Dagara compounds form a single stem, and the rightmost root in a stem domain controls vowel harmony, resulting in regressive root-controlled vowel harmony. The root also controls the harmony in affixation, resulting in left-to right harmony under suffixation. This bidirectional vowel harmony provides further evidence that the stem must be recognized as a prosodic domain.

충남방언 활용에서의 음성모음화

김정태(Jeong-tae Kim) 어문연구학회 2006 어문연구 Vol.51 No.-

The vowel harmony is one of the phonological phenomena which is represented by connecting to similar series of vowels. In these days, this vowel harmony has remained as a type of fossilization in modern Korean. That is the "-아/어’ alternation, adverb conjunctive endings as a result of diachronic variation. This variation is regarded to diachronic vowel harmony and also is described as a kind of assimilation. However, Lee Byeong-geun(1976), Kim Ju-won(1999), Lee Mun-Gyu(2004) described that vowel harmony is not an assimilation in modern Korean any more. So this study assumed that there are positive and negative ending synchronically. That is, it is considered being fossilized as vowel harmony in diachronic phonology. For example, they have the formation like this: stem-final positive vowels of Korean verb "ㅏ, ㅗ + ending 아" and "negative vowels + ending 어". In fact, although /먹어/-〉*[머가] is not realized, /잡아/-〉[자버] is realized in modern Korean. That is, it has no variation in "negative vowels+negative vowels", but it has variation into "positive vowels+positive vowels" in "posive vowels+negative vowels". We intend to call this negative vowelization. The purpose of this paper is to propose that this negative vowelization could be one of characteristics in Chungnam dialect. We cannot see the negative vowelization in conjugation of "negative vowels+negative vowels". It shows us itself the realization of negative vowel forms in the formation like this: negative vowels + C]vst+어, such as "넘+어-〉[너머], 뜯+어-〉[뜨더]". The cases of ‘끄+어→[꺼], 서+어→[서], 가리+어→[개려]’ are under the circumstance of hiatus avoidance. There is no variation of negative vowel, only deletion and gliding are existed. In this paper, ‘아→어’ is negative vowelization. In "ending positive vowel + ending positive vowel" structure, "아’ changes to "어’. However, "가+아서→[가서], 빻+아→[빠:]’ is a deletion from hiatus avoidance phenomena. It turns out that hiatus avoidance is prior to negative vowelization. In case that final sound is a sonorant consonant as ‘갈+아→[가러], 말+아서→[마러서], 감+아→[가머], 많+아→[마너], 앓+았지→[아?찌]’, we can see negative vowelization like "아→어". At the same time, even in case that final sound is a obstruent like ‘옭+아서→[올거서], 솎+아서→[소꺼서], 맞+아→[마저], 쫓+아→[쪼처]’, vowelization is shown. This" 아-->어’ is very negative vowelization. Then, what is a mechanism of negative vowelization? Because bac k·low-vowel "/a/" is changed to back·middle-vowel "/?/", it could be named as a vowel rising in Korean vowel system. But, "아→어’ is not the Vowel rising in this case. According to Kim Jeong-tae(2003:57), vowel rising is a unconditional alternation which is not affected by adjacent sound. 아→어’ as a negative vowelization is a conditional alternation, because of stem positive vowel and word-final consonant, circumstance of ‘V+C+_____’. That is the reason we can say that ‘아→어’ negative vowelization is one of characteristics in Chungnam dialect, due to vowel rising of common pronunciation tendency in Korean. This paper analysed the only utterances of the old in rural area. Because generational and individual differences are existed in actual language use, negative vowelization is optionally applied to speakers of modern Korean.

Segmental factors in variations of Korean vowel harmony: A corpus approach

Hayeun Jang 한국언어학회 2020 언어 Vol.45 No.3

This paper investigates the effects of segmental factors in variations of Korean vowel harmony: the number and quality of stem-final consonants and the class of fixed suffix vowels that follow the alternating suffix-initial vowels. Since the motivation of the vowel harmony rule is opaque in Present-Day Korean, this study hypothesizes that speakers of Present Day Korean use vowel-to-vowel coarticulatory cues in the application of the rule. By examining conjugation forms of /a/-final predicate stems in a spontaneous speech corpus of the Seoul dialect (collected by the National Institute of Korean Language in 1997), this paper shows the statistically significant counting and quality effect of stem-final consonants in variations of Korean vowel harmony. Stems closed by two coda consonants show a higher proportion of disharmonic forms than stems ending with a coda or a complex coda involving [h]. Stems having an obstruent coda in the final syllable cooccur with disharmonic forms more frequently than stems with a sonorant or a sonorant+[h] coda do. The result of corpus analysis also shows the effect of fixed suffix vowel: when a fixed suffix vowel following an alternating suffix-initial vowel has a different class from the stem-final vowel (e.g., /a/-final stem vs. [ə]-class fixed suffix vowel), disharmonic forms occur more frequently. Those segmental effects imply that speakers of the Present Day Korean use coarticulatory cues between two vowels in the application of the unnatural vowel harmony rule.

Gradient vowel cooccurrence restrictions in monomorphemic native Korean roots

Sung-Hoon Hong 한국음운론학회 2010 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.16 No.2

This paper presents evidence for gradient vowel cooccurrence restrictions holding in the monomorphemic roots of the native Korean words. Noting that vowel cooccurrence often emerges as a result of vowel harmony and vowel harmony was once active in Korean, I examine root-internal vowels to see if they conform to the general patterns of the vowel harmony. For this examination, I extract multisyllable words registered as monomorphemic and native in Pyo-jun-gug-eo-dai-sa-jeon (The National Institute of the Korean Language, 2001). I then measure the degree to which vowels occur together utilizing the metric of O/E, the ‘observed’ frequency divided by the ‘expected’ frequency (Pierrehumbert 1993). The O/E values obtained between two vowels in the first three syllables of the multisyllable words are compared to the possible and impossible patterns of the vowel harmony. The results show that although not absolute, vowel cooccurrence restrictions similar to those enforced by the vowel harmony hold in a gradient manner within a monomorphemic native root in Korean.

몽골인 한국어 학습자의 단모음 발음 오류와 모음조화 간의 상관관계

하영우,안성민 영주어문학회 2023 영주어문 Vol.54 No.-

This study aims to reveal the correlation betweenmonophthongs pronunciation errors and vowel harmony inMongolian Korean learners. To this end, a survey wasconducted of 70 Mongolian learners on the perception ofKorean vowels. As a result, in the survey, the majority oflearners classified Korean /ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ/ as male vowels, /ㅔ(ㅐ),ㅜ/ as female vowels, and /ㅡ/ as neutral. However, dependingon the learners’ level, /ㅣ/ was classified into two types, aneutral or female vowel. Afterward, based on these findings, ina separate analysis 5 female Mongolian Korean learners, wereverified as having a very high pronunciation error rate inmale-female vowel combination and in female-male vowelcombination that do not harmonized vowels. In addition,pronunciation errors that contained vowel harmony conditionswere more prominent in male_female vowel combination than infemale-male vowel combination. Moreover, the error rate of /ㅣwas different depending on the vowel harmony classificationtype. For instance, when /ㅣ/ vowels were classified as aneutral vowel, the first and second vowels were not significantly affected. Still, when classified as a female vowel,pronunciation errors increased when linked to male vowels. Theresearch findings clearly show Mongolian learners mayexperience pronunciation errors depending on the recognitionof vowel harmony of monophthongs. 이 연구는 몽골인 한국어 학습자의 단모음 발음 오류와 모음조화 현상 간의 상관관계를 밝히는 데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 몽골인 학습자 70명을 대상으로 한국어 모음에 대한 인식 조사를 실시하였다. 그 결과 한국어 /ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ/를 남성 모음으로, /ㅔ(ㅐ)/, /ㅜ/를 여성 모음으로, /ㅡ/를 중립 모음으로 분류하는 것이 우세하였다. /ㅣ/는숙달도에 따라 중립 또는 여성 모음으로 분류하는 특징을 보였다. 이후 여성 몽골인한국어 학습자 15명을 대상으로 모음조화 조건에 따른 단모음 오류 양상과 특성을 살펴보았다. 산출 실험에서 몽골인 학습자는 모음조화 위배 조건인 남성_여성 연쇄와여성_남성 연쇄에서 발음 오류율이 두드러졌다. 또한 모음조화 조건에 따른 발음 오류는 남성_여성 모음 연쇄 조건이 여성_남성 모음 연쇄 조건에 비해 작용력이 강했다. 두 유형으로 분류되었던 /ㅣ/는 모음조화 유형 분류 방식에 따라 오류율이 상이했다. 중립 모음으로 분류한 경우 선후행하는 모음에 큰 영향을 받지 않았으나 여성 모음으로 분류한 경우 남성 모음과 연쇄할 때 발음 오류가 증가했다. 이를 통해 몽골인학습자는 단모음의 모음조화 인식에 따라 발음 오류가 발생할 수 있음을 확인하였다

Vowel harmony in Korean verbs

Jong Shil Kim 한국음운론학회 2007 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.13 No.3

  This study presents an analysis of the vowel harmony in Korean verbs. Both regular and irregular verbs are examined and the harmony process is characterized as follows. First, a general lowering harmony applies to the following initial vowel of the connective suffix. Second, the lowness is considered to behave differently with respect to the round vowels: that is, the high vowel [u] takes relatively less ‘low’ [?] suffix whereas the mid [o] takes more ‘low’ [a] suffix. Third, the final glide [w] in irregular verbs makes the stems take the [?] suffix except the case of [o] in the monosyllabic stem. To account for the harmony phenomena, three MATCH constraints are proposed. The constraints do not require the shared linkage of spread features, thus making the harmony in the Korean verbs a case of choosing the suffix with either [±LOW] feature value. A general MATCH constraint makes the stem final vowel agree with the suffix vowel in its [LOW] feature value. More specific MATCH constraint is suggested for the stems with round vowels that match with the suffix vowel according to their relative lowness. The irregular verb stems ending in [w] correspond with the adjacent non-low suffix [?] by another special MATCH constraint.