Revisiting Vowel Harmony in Korean Sound-symbolic Words: A Corpus-based Quantitative Approach

doi:10.18627/jslg.35.3.201911.309

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2019 Vol.35, Issue 3 Next Page

Research Article

Revisiting Vowel Harmony in Korean Sound-symbolic Words: A Corpus-based Quantitative Approach 한국어 음성상징어의 모음조화 재고: 말뭉치 기반 계량적 접근: 김선회, 남성현
Kim, Sun-Hoi and Nam, Sunghyun

30 November 2019. pp. 309-325

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Abstract

This paper rethinks the issue of vowel harmony in Korean sound-symbolic words, using more refined data, which is extracted from a large size of corpus, SJ-RIKS (Kang and Kim, 2009). The data of this paper contains 1,023 reduplicative sound-symbolic words of which the base is composed of two or three syllables. It is distinct from that of previous studies in that the sound-symbolic words are all listed in Pyo-jun-gug-eo-dai-sa-jeon (Grand Dictionary of Standard Korean, The National Institute of the Korean Language). By and large, the result of the analysis in this paper supports the proposals of previous studies. However, it is shown that the partial neutrality of [a] is not found in the data of this paper. Thus, Larsen and Heinz (2012)’s proposal of the [a]’s partial neutrality is not supported by the result of this paper. In addition, this paper discusses the additional issues of vowel harmony in Korean sound-symbolic words, such as the transparency issue of medial vowels, the difference in vowel harmony between cross-modal sound-symbolic words and onomatopoeic ones, and the issue of use frequency effect on vowel harmony.

Keywords

vowel harmony

Korean sound-symbolic words

light vowels

dark vowels

neutral vowels

References

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국립국어원. 2000. 『표준국어대사전 편찬용 의성의태어 목록』(온라인 판, https://www.korean.go.kr/front/etcData/ etcDataView.do? &etc_seq=17&mn_id=46). 2019년 8월 현재. 서울: 국립국어원.
국립국어원. 2019. 『표준국어대사전』(온라인 판, https://stdict.korean.go.kr). 2019년 8월 현재. 서울: 국립국어원.
신지영 ‧ 차재은. 2013. 『우리말 소리의 체계: 국어 음운론 연구의 기초를 위하여』. 서울: 한국문화사.
Bybee, J. 2002. Word Frequency and Context of Use in the Lexical Diffusion of Phonetically Conditioned Sound Change. Language Variation and Change 14, 261-290. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/S0954394502143018
Cho, M.-H. 1994. Vowel Harmony in Korean: A Grounded Phonology Approach. Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana University.
Crawley, M. J. 2014. The R Book (Korean Version). (정사범·권정민 역). Gyeonggi-Do: Acorn (경기도: 에이콘).
Dingemanse, R., D. E. Shuerman, E. Reinisch, S. Tufvesson, and H. Mitterer. 2016. What Sound Symbolism Can and Cannot do: Testing the Iconicity of Ideophones from Five Languages. Language 92.2, e117-e133. 10.17959/sppm.2010.16.2.279
Hong, S.-H. 2010. Gradient Vowel Cooccurrence Restrictions in Monomorphemic Native Korean Roots. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology (『음성·음운·형태론 연구』) 16.2, 279-295.
Hooper, J. B. 1976. Word Frequency in Lexical Diffusion and the Source of Morphophonological Change. In W. Pagliuca (ed.), Current Progress in Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: North Holland, 96-105.
Kim-Renaud, Y.-K. 1976. Semantic Features in Phonology: Evidence from Vowel Harmony in Korean. Chicago Linguistics Society 12, 397-412.
Kwon. N. 2018. Iconicity Correlated with Vowel Harmony in Korean Ideophones. Laboratory Phonology 9.1, 1-18. 10.5334/labphon.53
Larsen, D. and J. Heinz. 2012. Neutral Vowels in Sound-symbolic Vowel Harmony in Korean. Phonology 29, 433-464. 10.1017/S095267571200022X
Lee, S.-O. 1984. An Overview of Issues in the Vowel System and Vowel Harmony of Korean: Disharmony among of the Hypotheses of Vowel Harmony. Language Research (『어학연구』) 20.4, 417-451.
Park, S. 1990. Vowel Harmony in Korean. Language Research (『어학연구』) 26.3, 469-499.
Pierrehumbert, J. 1993. Dissimilarity in the Arabic Verbal Roots. NELS 23, 367-381
R Development Core Team. 2019. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (Version 3.6.0). Available at http://www.r-project.org.
Shin, J., J. Kiaer, and J. Cha. 2012. The Sounds of Korean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139342858
Sohn, H.-M. 1999. The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Information

Publisher :The Modern Linguistic Society of Korea
Publisher(Ko) :한국현대언어학회
Journal Title :The Journal of Studies in Language
Journal Title(Ko) :언어연구
Volume : 35
No :3
Pages :309-325
DOI :https://doi.org/10.18627/jslg.35.3.201911.309

[1] 강범모 ‧ 김흥규. 2009. 『한국어 사용 빈도』(CD 포함). 서울: 한국문화사.

[2] 국립국어원. 2000. 『표준국어대사전 편찬용 의성의태어 목록』(온라인 판, https://www.korean.go.kr/front/etcData/ etcDataView.do? &etc_seq=17&mn_id=46). 2019년 8월 현재. 서울: 국립국어원.

[3] 국립국어원. 2019. 『표준국어대사전』(온라인 판, https://stdict.korean.go.kr). 2019년 8월 현재. 서울: 국립국어원.

[4] 신지영 ‧ 차재은. 2013. 『우리말 소리의 체계: 국어 음운론 연구의 기초를 위하여』. 서울: 한국문화사.

[5] Bybee, J. 2002. Word Frequency and Context of Use in the Lexical Diffusion of Phonetically Conditioned Sound Change. Language Variation and Change 14, 261-290. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/S0954394502143018

[6] Cho, M.-H. 1994. Vowel Harmony in Korean: A Grounded Phonology Approach. Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana University.

[7] Crawley, M. J. 2014. The R Book (Korean Version). (정사범·권정민 역). Gyeonggi-Do: Acorn (경기도: 에이콘).

[8] Dingemanse, R., D. E. Shuerman, E. Reinisch, S. Tufvesson, and H. Mitterer. 2016. What Sound Symbolism Can and Cannot do: Testing the Iconicity of Ideophones from Five Languages. Language 92.2, e117-e133. 10.17959/sppm.2010.16.2.279

[9] Hong, S.-H. 2010. Gradient Vowel Cooccurrence Restrictions in Monomorphemic Native Korean Roots. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology (『음성·음운·형태론 연구』) 16.2, 279-295.

[10] Hooper, J. B. 1976. Word Frequency in Lexical Diffusion and the Source of Morphophonological Change. In W. Pagliuca (ed.), Current Progress in Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: North Holland, 96-105.

[11] Kim-Renaud, Y.-K. 1976. Semantic Features in Phonology: Evidence from Vowel Harmony in Korean. Chicago Linguistics Society 12, 397-412.

[12] Kwon. N. 2018. Iconicity Correlated with Vowel Harmony in Korean Ideophones. Laboratory Phonology 9.1, 1-18. 10.5334/labphon.53

[13] Larsen, D. and J. Heinz. 2012. Neutral Vowels in Sound-symbolic Vowel Harmony in Korean. Phonology 29, 433-464. 10.1017/S095267571200022X

[14] Lee, S.-O. 1984. An Overview of Issues in the Vowel System and Vowel Harmony of Korean: Disharmony among of the Hypotheses of Vowel Harmony. Language Research (『어학연구』) 20.4, 417-451.

[15] Park, S. 1990. Vowel Harmony in Korean. Language Research (『어학연구』) 26.3, 469-499.

[16] Pierrehumbert, J. 1993. Dissimilarity in the Arabic Verbal Roots. NELS 23, 367-381

[17] R Development Core Team. 2019. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (Version 3.6.0). Available at http://www.r-project.org.

[18] Shin, J., J. Kiaer, and J. Cha. 2012. The Sounds of Korean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139342858

[19] Sohn, H.-M. 1999. The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Journal of Studies in Language ISSN:1225-4770(Print) 2671-6151(Online) 언어연구

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