Korean Linguistics - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2000

This paper was presented under the title "How has the Korean vowel system changed through time?" at the 11 th International Conference on Korean Linguistics (Honolulu, July 1998). There are three parts: (1) on Korean vowel harmony; (2) on the hypothesis that the values of the modem vowel system is the result of rotation, a shift of articulatory values; (3) on the connotative associations of the vocalic features, the etymological implications of vowel sets, and the canonical patterns found in the nouns and the verb stems.

CINITIAL has the strongest effect on F0 among the four factors in cases of both pooled and individual data. Such an effect indicates that there is a strong correlation between the initial consonant type and tone: H following aspirated and tense consonants and LH following other consonants. Vowel has also an effect on F0 throughout the three temporal locations but its effect is much weaker than that of CINITIAL in size (Hz). However, the effect of Length and CFINAL on F0 is found to be almost negligible. Interactions between factors are found to be due to sporadic - presumably is linguistically unimportant - effects rather than to systematic difference.A more through phonetic study suggests that there is a strong correlation between consonant types and tone, confirming Jun's earlier observation. For the fact that consonant types correlated with tone, the phonological discussion of Jun's analysis and an alternative analysis is provided. Jun explains the consonant type-tone interaction in terms of the phonologization of laryngeal effect at an intonational level of Korean phonology. However, in Jun's analysis, it still remains clear why there is a correlation if the laryngeal effect is phonologized. Contrary to Jun, the consonant types-tone interaction is well accounted for in the alternative analysis in terms of the voice hypothesis that lax consonants are underlyingly voiced. This interpretation has potential implications for tonogenesis.

Several linguistically intriguing issues have been raised in the literature with regard to complex verbal constructions (CVC's hereafter) which are ubiquitous in Korean language. In particular, various proposals are available in regard to various interrelated aspects such as (a) the underlying structure of CVC's, (b) the argument structure (AS hereafter) of CVC's, (c) the constraints on surface realization of arguments, (d) the constraints on the admission of component predicates, (e) the grammaticalization of the components within CVC's, and so forth. The main focus of the present paper is to observe and explicate the AS of CVC's and its licensing.