Korean Linguistics - Current Issue

This article re-evaluated two pre-Old Korean appellations for Paekche kings, yuluoxia (於羅瑕) and jianjizhi (鞬吉支) from the Zhoushu (周書), and their proposed sound correspondences orikoke (オリコケ) and konikishi (コニキシ) from the Nihon shoki (日本書紀). As a conclusion, yuluo- (於羅) corresponded to a Paekchean loan in Western Old Japanese, derived from proto-Japonic *era- > WOJ [ira] ‘high esteem for man.’ -Xia (瑕) parallelled to -jia (加) in official titles from Koguryŏ and Puyŏ. Similarly, jian- (鞬) aligned with -kan- (干) for the pre-OK **kan ~ ɣan ‘king, lord’ in Silla aristocratic titles. -Zhi (支) meaning ‘sir, lord’ shared variants such as -ji (伎) ~ -qi (岐), linked to the pre-OK **ke > kje(j) > ki, and the phonograms jie- (皆) ∼ -xie (諧) ∼ -jie- (解), -ke (奚) for pre-OK **kej ∼ kəj. -Jizhi (吉支) was a variant of -kilji (吉之) ~ -jishi (吉士) ~ -jishi (吉師) as pre-OK **ki.si meaning “sir, lord” originated from the appellation for Jizi (箕子) in Puyŏ-type language.

Abstract: This study offers the first systematic orthographic comparison of the two extant ŏnhae (vernacular translation) editions of the Tongmong sŏnsŭp (童蒙先習, henceforth TMSS), produced in 1742 and 1797 respectively. Although the Tongmong sŏnsŭp is one of the most influential primers in the history of Korean Confucian education, modern scholarship has focused almost exclusively on its Literary Sinitic version and kugyŏl glossing tradition. The vernacular translations — key sources for understanding Early Modern Korean (EMK) phonology, morphology, and spelling — have received significantly less attention.

The study reveals the existence of two distinct but internally consistent orthographic systems. The earlier 1742 edition (Text A) demonstrates a conservative approach, systematically preserving older, phonemic spelling principles characteristic of Middle Korean. Conversely, the 1797 edition (Text B) consistently employs innovative, morphophonemic principles that anticipate the standards of Modern Korean. The analysis covers key diagnostic features such as palatalization, coda neutralization, the realization of sonorant initials, and vowel shifts.

Taken together, the findings demonstrate that EMK spelling variation was not arbitrary, but followed identifiable structural principles shaped by phonological change, editorial conventions, and state-sponsored standardization. While the conclusions cannot be generalized to the entire EMK corpus, the study complicates the prevailing narrative and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the structured, albeit varied, evolution of the Korean writing system during a critical period of transition and thus represents a first step toward a more nuanced understanding of orthographic practice in the Late Chosŏn period.

The Korean temporal system exhibits a striking discrepancy between the tense-aspect markings used in declarative sentences and those found in noun-modifying (adnominal) clauses. While contemporary declarative sentences primarily utilize -ess- for the past and -nun-/-n- for the present, modifying clauses maintain a system where a “zero” form marks the past and -nu- marks the present. This paper argues that these discrepancies are the result of uneven historical grammaticalization. By examining 15th-century Middle Korean, this study demonstrates that noun-modifying clauses are conservative structures that preserve an older temporal system, whereas declarative sentences have undergone radical reorganization due to the emergence of the past tense marker -ess- originating from the resultative marker -e is-.

It has been discussed that there is a close relationship between sentence ending particles and clause types in Korean. In this paper, I focus on the cases where we find interesting pairings between the form and the function. Specifically, the constructions that I investigate have a form of interrogative while they have the illocutionary force of exclaiming. After discussing their syntactic and semantic/pragmatic properties, I characterize them as wh-marked polar interrogatives in Korean. These wh-marked polar interrogatives are used to express surprise or unexpectedness of the speaker towards the prior assertion or listener’s belief in the context. Due to the presence of a wh-word, the sentence expresses the speaker’s judgment that p <likely ¬p.