This study investigates a word-initial glottalization in Korean and tries to research on the actual condition of modern Korean word-initial glottalization in Seoul. An analysis of these findings is compared with a regional dialect and tries to find ou...
This study investigates a word-initial glottalization in Korean and tries to research on the actual condition of modern Korean word-initial glottalization in Seoul. An analysis of these findings is compared with a regional dialect and tries to find out transition phase diachronically since the 15th century.
So far, Korean glottalization has only focused on word-medial glottalization and a word-initial glottalization has not been paid attention to. A word-initial glottalization has been regarded as mispronunciation, a target of purification, or psychological factors. However, this word-initial glottalization phenomenon takes place automatically and naturally and there are an extensive vocabulary which occurs this language state. For these reasons, a word-initial glottalization needs to be studied from the diverse perspectives, not dealing with psychological matters for self-defense and personal ostentation.
An object of this study largely has three parts: Modern word-initial glottalization in Seoul, word-initial glottalization in local areas, and historical glottalization phenomenon. First, modern word-initial glottalization in Seoul is the core part of this study. In this study, Seoul speech is examined as the research object in order to discover an actual condition of a word-initial glottalization. Here, Seoul speech is not a traditional Seoul dialect. It is an integrated concept and targeted at people residing in Seoul.
Next, a word-initial glottalization of a regional dialect is the second part of investigation. It is necessary to compare the local dialect with a word-initial glottalization of Seoul speech in order to fully understand Seoul accent. Thus, this study tries to describe all the possible word-initial glottalization lists by regional groups and this data can be a basic information for comparison between Seoul speech and an regional dialect.
Third, historical word-initial glottalization is the subject of study. It is necessary to understand that a word-initial glottalization of modern Korean is a continuation of diachronic word-initial glottalization. This study examines the change of pronunciation from lenis consonants to glottalization since the 15th century. Especially, this research focuses on when this linguistic phenomenon happens and tries to investigate the advent of a word-initial glottalization specifically.
This study basically aims for an empirical study based on research materials. To fulfill this, reference research was conducted synchronically and diachronically. And the questionnaire survey was performed. Dialect data and diachronic data is mainly based on the business product of the 21st Century Sejong Project, Korean Language Information Search. Also, a survey was administered in order to find out a word-initial glottalization in reality and the survey was a face-to-face interview. 240 subjects participated in this study.
The findings of the research were summarized as follows. In the second chapter, a face-to-face interview was performed by conducting surveys administered to six different age groups: in one's teens to in one's sixties. By doing this, numerical value of glottalization was presented and the cause of a word-initial glottalization was classified as language external factors and language internal factors.
In the third chapter, this study examined a word-initial glottalization by regional groups. In this study, <Korean Language Information Search> is used to list each regional word-initial glottalization and investigate the ranking of an initial phoneme and the frequency by parts of speech. As a result of an analysis, a word-initial glottalization occurred the most frequently in Jeonnam province. According to the frequency of an initial phoneme, /ㄲ/ is a high frequency in most regions and /ㄸ, ㅉ/ is a low frequency. However, in Jeju, /ㅆ/ is the high frequency of an intial fortis. Looking into parts of speech, a word-initial glottalization takes place the most actively in noun.
In the fourth chapter, historical word-initial glottalization is the subject of study. A word-initial glottalization do not occur as slick as nothing at all and takes place for a long time. In Korean, there are two aspects in diachronic a word-initial fortis form glottalization. One is that the word-initial lenis form is changed into the word-initial glottalization. The other is that word-initial consonant cluster is transformed into the word-initial glottalization. So, in this study, sound shift was investigated through time especially, focused on when this happens from vocabulary to vocabulary. Two lenis consonants words do not replace a word-initial fortis all of a sudden at one period. A word is originally a lenis consonant and it is changed into a fortis at some point. A word-initial lenis form and a word-initial fortis form co-exist and compete each other. A word-initial fortis form is becoming hard with public support.
This study shows that a word-initial glottalization of Korean is not marginal but is the phenomenon of language center. Therefore, we need to study further regardless of research difficulties. For this reason, this study presented as much data as possible and described the actual state of glottalization