Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2020.12.1.033

Frequency of grammar items for Korean substitution of /u/ for /o/ in the word-final position  

Yoon, Eunkyung (Department of Korean Language and Multi-Cultural Studies, Daegu Cyber University)
Publication Information
Phonetics and Speech Sciences / v.12, no.1, 2020 , pp. 33-42 More about this Journal
Abstract
This study identified the substitution of /u/ for /o/ (e.g., pyəllo [pyəllu]) in Korean based on the speech corpus as a function of grammar items. Korean /o/ and /u/ share the vowel feature [+rounded], but are distinguished in terms of tongue height. However, researchers have reported that the merger of Korean /o/ and /u/ is in progress, making them indistinguishable. Thus, in this study, the frequency of the phonetic manifestation /u/ of the underlying form of /o/ for each grammar item was calculated in The Korean Corpus of Spontaneous Speech (Seoul Corpus 2015) which is a large corpus from a total of 40 speakers from Seoul or Gyeonggi-do. It was then confirmed that linking endings, particles, and adverbs ending with /o/ in the word-final position were substituted for /u/ approximately 50% of the stimuli, whereas, in nominal items, they were replaced at a frequency of less than 5%. The high rates of substitution were the special particle "-do[du]" (59.6%) and the linking ending "-go[gu]" (43.5%) among high-frequency items. Observing Korean pronunciation in real life provides deep insight into its theoretical implications in terms of speech recognition.
Keywords
Korean vowels; /o/-rising; substitution; frequency of grammatical items; Seoul Corpus 2015; vowel shift;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 6  (Citation Analysis)
연도 인용수 순위
1 Chae, S. Y. (1999). The core- periphery structure in the Korean lexicon reflected in a phonological variation and change. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology, 5(1), 217-236.
2 Eychenne, J., & Courdes-Murphy, L. (2019). Phonometrica: An open platform for the analysis of speech corpora. Proceedings of the Seoul International Conference on Speech Sciences 2019 (pp. 107-108). Seoul, Korea.
3 Ha, Y., & Oh, J. (2017). A study on vowel systems and aspects focusing on announcers vowel pronunciation. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology, 23(1), 55-94   DOI
4 Han, J. I., & Kang, H. (2013). Cross-generational change of /o/ and /u/ in Seoul Korean I: Proximity in vowel space. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 5(2), 25-31.   DOI
5 Kang, H., & Han, J. I. (2013). Cross-generational change of /o/ and /u/ in Seoul Korean II: Spectral interactions in normalized vowel space. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 5(2), 33-41.   DOI
6 Kang, J., & Kong, E. (2016). Static and dynamic spectral properties of the monophthong vowels in Seoul Korean: Implication on sound change. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 8(4), 25-31.   DOI
7 Kim, S., & Yoon, K. (2015a). A comparative study on the effects of age on the vowel formants of the Korean corpus of spontaneous speech. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 7(3), 65-72.   DOI
8 Kim, S., & Yoon, K. (2015b). A study on the male vowel formants of the Korean corpus of spontaneous speech. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 7(2), 95-102.   DOI
9 Lee, H., Shin, W., & Shin, J. (2017). A sociophonetic study on high/mid back vowels in Korean. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 9(2), 39-51.   DOI
10 Lee, J., Yoon, K., & Byun, K. (2016). A study of vowel shift in Seoul Korean. The Journal of Studies in Language, 31(4), 979-998.   DOI
11 Yoon, K., & Kim, S. (2015). A comparative study on the male and female vowel formants of the Korean corpus of spontaneous speech. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 7(2), 131-138.   DOI
12 Seo, S. (2005). Adverbs and adjectives. Understanding of Korean Language, 15(1), 179-192.
13 Seong, C. (2004). An acoustic analysis on the Korean 8 monophthongs: With respect to the acoustic variables on the F1/F2 vowel space. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea, 23(6), 454-461.
14 Yang, S. I. (2018). A critical review on the studies of the Korean monophthongs: At the contact point of Korean educational linguistics. Journal of Korean Linguistics, 85, 429-462.   DOI
15 Yun, W., Yoon, K., Park, S., Lee, J., Cho, S., Kang, D., Byun, K., ... Kim, J. (2015). The Korean corpus of spontaneous speech. Phonetics and Speech Sciences, 7(2), 103-109.   DOI