Was the Korean alphabet a sole invention of King Sejong?

( Yeon¸ Jae-hoon ) 한국어문학국제학술포럼 2010 Journal of Korean Culture Vol.14 No.-

이 논문에서 우리는 훈민정음의 ‘세종 친제설’을 다시 한번 주장한다. 세종이 집현전 학자들과 협력하거나(협동 가설), 집현전 학자들에게 명령하여(명령 가설) 훈민정음을 창제하였다는 가설을 반박하고, 훈민정음은 세종 단독의 작품이라는 것(친제가설)을 주장하는 것이다. 창제 과정에서 그 당시 세자의 협력이 있었을 가능성은 열어 두었다. 우리의 주장은 언어학 외적인 증거와 언어학 내적인 증거에 토대를 두고 있다. 언어학 외적인 증거는 다양한 역사적 문헌들에 근거를 두고 있다. 언어학 내적인 근거는 용비어천가와 월인천강지곡에 사용된 표기법이 세종의 독특한 음운학적 지식을 반영하고 있다는 데서 출발한다. 이 외에도 훈민정음 서문의 한글 번역문이 108개의 음절로 이루어져 있는 사실이나, 훈민정음의 첫 글자인‘ㄱ’의 발음을 설명하는 글자로서 하필이면 임금 군(君)’자가 선택된 배경에는 뭔가 숨겨진 이유가 있다고 보았다. 또 훈민정음 문자들을 표시하는 한자들을 순서대로 열거하면 ‘군규쾌업’이 되는데, 이것은 ‘임금과 왕자가 즐겁게 일(훈민정음 창제)을 이루었다’는 뜻이 된다. 이 논문에서는 또한 19세기부터 20세기 초까지 서양학자들이나 선교사들이 한글의 기원이나 훈민정음 창제 배경에 대해서 발표한 논문들도 살펴보았다. 우리는 이러한 연구들의 문제점을 지적하였고, 한글 창제에 대한 여러 가지 가설들의 문제점은 1940년 <훈민정음> 원본이 발견되면서 한층 더 분명해진 것으로 보았다. This paper tries to argue that the Korean alphabet is a sole invention of King Sejong on the contrary to the prevalent view that the King either ordered a group of scholars to invent the script (command hypothesis) or worked alongside a team of scholars (cooperation hypothesis). This paper also reviews various observations and theories proposed by western scholars in 19^th and early 20^th century. There is absolutely no evidence or record from the period that shows that anyone else helped Sejong or worked on his orders. No member of the Chipyonjon was involved before 1443, when they compiled "Explanations and Examples of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People" on the back of the invention Sejong had already completed. The conclusion is that King Sejong invented Hangul himself in isolation, perhaps only consulting the crown prince and his other sons. Many attempts have also been made to reduce the origin of the Korean alphabet to other systems of writing, such as Chinese seal characters, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Uighur-Mongol and Phags-pa. All these comparisons, however, are restricted to incidental resemblances of a few letters and are far from convincing. The mystery of the origin of the Korean alphabet was finally solved in July 1940, when the original text of the Hunmin chŏngŭm was found in Andong.

Coding Conflict or Semantic Contrast?

Jaehoon Yeon 사단법인 한국언어학회 2006 한국언어학회 학술대회지 Vol.2006 No.6

A Variety of Grammatical Constructions - Double-Accusative Constructions in Korean Revisited -

Yeon Jaehoon(연재훈) 한국어학회 2019 한국어학 Vol.85 No.-

한국어문법에서 많은 주목을 받아온 이중대격구문 중에서 이 논문에서는 소유주상승이중대격구문(External Possession type DACs)의 특성을 다시 중점적으로 다루었다. 소유주상승 이중대격구문은 다른 대격구문들과는 다른 특성을 보여준다. 소유주 명사구와 피소유주 명사구는 단일 구성성분을 형성하지는 않지만 소유주가 항상 피소유주에 선행하는 특징을 보인다. 몇 가지 목적어 판단 기준에 의하면, 소유주 대격명사구가 진정한 목적어이며 피소유주 대격명사구는 목적어의 기능을 잃고 초점적인 해석을 받는다고 판정하였다. 이중대격구문의 문법성은 기본적으로 의미-화용적 지식과 언어외적 지식에 좌우되기 때문에 이 구문을 통사적이거나 형식적인 문법 기제에 의해서 설명하려는 어떤 시도도 성공할 수 없다고 보았다. 이중대격 구문의 문법성을 결정하는 가장 중요한 요소는 제한적 관점의 ‘분리(불)가능’((in)alienable)이라는 자질이 아니라 ‘인접성’(contiguity)과 ‘영향입음’(affectedness) 자질이라고 보았다. 기존의 의미역을 대체하는 자질로서의 ‘인접성’과 ‘영향입음’ 조건은 의미역이 아니고, 문맥과 언어외적 지식을 포함하는 인지-화용적 개념으로 이해할 필요가 있다. 따라서 이중대격 구문의 해석과 문법성 수용의 정도도 문맥과 언어외적인 지식을 고려할 때에만 더 정확해질 수 있다는 점을 강조하였다. In Korean, there are constructions in which the accusative particle ul/lul occurs on more than one NP within a single sentence. Among many types of the so-called ‘Double Accusative Constructions’ (DAC), an External Possession (EP) Type DAC (Payne & Barshi, 1999) is the main concern of this paper. It has been questionable whether DACs are genuine double object constructions. We have argued that DACs can be regarded as structures in which there is only one real object, but two Acc-marked NPs, based on some object diagnostics. We have examined the constraints acting upon Korean EP type DACs while arguing that Korean DACs cannot be fully explained solely based on syntax or semantics without considering some pragmatic and cognitive factors. We have shown that ‘contiguity’ and ‘affectedness’ are the two most important factors in determining constraints on felicitous EP type DACs. The notion of ‘contiguity’ and ‘affectedness’ is more appropriate than any other factors such as the distinction between alienable and inalienable possession to characterise more accurately the relationship between the possessor and the possessee in Korean EP type DACs. It is also noted that ‘contiguity’ and ‘affectedness’ cannot be thematic roles or semantic roles because what counts as ‘contiguous’ and ‘affected’ is context-dependent and cognitively/pragmatically interpreted. The degree of acceptability and interpretation of DACs depend on pragmatics and extra-linguistic knowledge.

The Sounds of Korean: A Pronunciation Guide. By Miho Choo and William O’Grady. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003. vii+256 pp., US$22.00 (paperback)

Jaehoon Yeon(서평자) The Academy of Korean Studies 2004 THE REVIEW OF KOREAN STUDIES Vol.7 No.3

The Korean Language. By Iksop Lee and S. Robert Ramsey. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2000. 374 pp., $71.50 (hardcover)

Jaehoon Yeon(서평자) The Academy of Korean Studies 2002 THE REVIEW OF KOREAN STUDIES Vol.5 No.2

On the Linguistic Divergence between North and South Korea

Yeon, Jaehoon,Mok, Jungsoo 국제비교한국학회 2003 비교한국학 Comparative Korean Studies Vol.11 No.1

There exists a large linguistic gap between South and North Korea as a result of a series of systematic innovations introduced into the North Korean language since the abolition of Chinese characters in 1949, and such innovations were motivated to a great extent by political as well as ideological considerations. In this paper, we will examine the linguistic policies implemented in North Korea and different language usages between North and South Korea. Although some differences are found in all the fields of morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology and stylistics, both languages have a common phonological and grammatical structure and both people have no difficulties in communicating except a few different usage of vocabulary. Our conclusion is that the extent of differentiation can not reverse the belief of homogeneity of North and South Korean languages.

Coding Conflict or Semantic Contrast?

Jaehoon Yeon 사단법인 한국언어학회 2007 언어학 Vol.0 No.47

Teaching Korean for University Degree Courses: Communicative or Traditional?

( Jaehoon Yeon ) 국제한국어교육학회 2016 국제한국어교육학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2016 No.-

Alternate Syntactic Frames and Semantic Contrasts

Jaehoon Yeon 한국언어유형론학회 2021 언어유형론연구 Vol.6 No.2

Cross-linguistically there are different mechanisms for alternate syntactic coding of semantic roles. Typological studies show that alternate syntactic frames are a recurrent feature of human languages. In this article, we have examined space-object constructions and possessor-ascension constructions in Korean, in which alternate syntactic frames are available with verbs undergoing no morphological change. In space-object constructions, a semantic difference is manifested depending on which semantic role is chosen as direct object. In other words, accusative-space and locative-space constructions contain the same semantic roles (agent, theme, locative) and differ only with respect to which role is chosen as direct object and thereby presented as more central. Many languages, including Korean, generally show a semantic contrast between total affectedness of accusative-space and partial affectedness of locative-space. This is consistent with the typological universal that the marking for the wholly affected patient is the accusative and the marking for the partly affected patient is usually non-accusative (whether it is locative, genitive or partitive). Possessor ascension is a device which promotes a possessor NP to the status of affected object. When possessor ascension takes place, the possessor NP is turned into the Primary object of the verb, and the original object becomes the Secondary object. The possessor marked as accusative behaves like a typical direct object and the possessee loses the status of direct object to have a secondary object interpretation.

A TYPOLOGICAL STUDY ON THE GRAMMATICAL ENCODING OF THE CAUSEE IN CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

JAEHOON YEON 국제한국언어학회 1998 korean Linguistics Vol.9 No.-