Seedy Road · Web viewNeutralization and anti-homophony in Korean1. Daniel Silverman. San José...

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Neutralization and anti-homophony in Korean1

Daniel Silverman

San José State University

ABSTRACT. Neutralization in Korean involves a large number of oppositions,

and affects a significant portion of the lexicon. Nonetheless, it induces

remarkably little homophony. These highly divergent facts are argued herein to

be intimately related: the neutralization of so many values in Korean is tolerated

EXACTLY BECAUSE it has a negligible effect on the amount of derived

homophony. Understanding how this came to pass requires an investigation of

the history of Korean, especially in the context of its extensive contact with

Middle Chinese. The present findings suggest a reconsideration of the role that

‘functional load’ (Martinet 1952, Hockett 1967) plays in patterns of sound

change.

…[T]here is no doubt that in some way or other, linguistic systems respond to change in ways

that maintain meaning—more or less -William Labov (1994, 569)

0. INTRODUCTION

2

Generally speaking, low level phonetic variation among contrastive values is passively delimited

such that a comfortable perceptual ‘buffer zone’ is maintained between one value and its

immediate systemic ‘neighbors’ (see, for example, Paul 1880, Kruszewski 1883, Baudouin de

Courtenay 1910, Martinet 1952, Hockett 1955, Lindblom, MacNeilage, & Studdert-Kennedy

1984, Labov 1994, Flemming 1995, de Boer 2001). However, under certain circumstances this

buffer zone may be fatally breached such that one value may (diachronically) merge or

(synchronically) neutralize with another. Martinet (1952), for example, indeed observes that

there is a strong tendency for merged values to have been phonological neighbors in the past, in

the sense that they had already shared a significant number of phonetic features. In short,

MERGED VALUES TEND TO HAVE BEEN PHONETICALLY SIMILAR IN THE PAST.

Now, as it is not readily testable, a compelling diagnostic of ‘phonetic similarity’

continues to elude scholars of linguistic sound structure. ‘Perceptual similarity,’ however, CAN

be tested, by measuring the degree to which sounds might be confused with one another. We

might propose, then, that IN A GIVEN LANGUAGE, SOUNDS ARE PERCEPTUALLY SIMILAR IF LOW

LEVEL VARIATION IN COMPARABLE CONTEXTS MIGHT RENDER THEM PERCEPTUALLY INDISTINCT,

AT LEAST ONCE IN A WHILE. Under the proper conditions, it is these sorts of values that may be

susceptible to merger. Thus, for example, we don’t expect [] and [] to merge (or neutralize),

since it is highly unlikely that low level variation would ever render one confusable with the

other. However, under certain circumstances, it would not surprise us if [] and, say, [] were to

merge, since low level variation may indeed render one confusable with the other, at least once

in a while.

3

For Martinet though, the fact that a language might possess similar values like [] and []

does not necessarily increase the likelihood of these values’ merging. Far from the ‘blind’

approach to sound change espoused by the Neogrammarians, what crucially matters according to

Martinet is the extent to which this opposition minimally distinguishes meaningful units of

language (that is, morphemes), since the amount of homophony in a lexicon may have an impact

on communicative success: the more homophony, the more likely that the speech signal will

contain lexical ambiguities, and so the more often speech might induce confusion for listeners.

Under the assumption that successful speech is more likely to take hold as the conventionalized

norm than is unsuccessful speech, then speech with fewer homophones is more likely to take

hold as the conventionalized norm than is speech with more homophones (see especially

Silverman 2006 on this point). Martinet consequently proposes additional pressures at work in

patterns of diachronic merger, the most important being the ‘functional load’ of the opposition.

Martinet writes: ‘In its simplest and somewhat unsophisticated acceptation, [functional yield,

burden, or load] refers to the number of lexical pairs which would be complete homonyms if it

were not for that one word of the pair presents one member A of the opposition where the other

shows the other member B: the pair pack – back is part of a functional yield of the /p/-/b/

opposition in English, and so are repel – rebel, cap – cab, and hosts of others’ (p.8). In other

words, the functional yield, burden, or load of an opposition is determined by the number of

MINIMAL MORPHEME PAIRS for which the opposition is responsible. If the functional load of, say,

the []-[] opposition is high, then merger is less likely to take place between these phonetically

similar sounds. But if the functional load of the opposition is low, merger is more likely to

proceed, since merger of the two will not significantly increase homophony.

4

Martinet immediately acknowledges several shortcomings of this straightforward

definition. First, considering a single opposition may be insufficient to gauge the likelihood of

merger. Rather, the extent to which this opposition is CORRELATED should be considered as well.

The Trubetskoyan notion of CORRELATED OPPOSITION (1939) takes into account all the

oppositions in a system that crucially hinge on one feature. For example, although the functional

load of the English [] – [] opposition is exceedingly meager, it is merely one member of a

correlated opposition involving voicing. Since sound changes tend to affect correlated values

(that is, natural classes) rather than single members of a correlated opposition (at least for

consonants), then—because the functional load of the voicing opposition in English is rather

high—merger of the [] – [] opposition might be curtailed. THE LESS CORRELATED THE

OPPOSITION, THE MORE LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE; THE MORE CORRELATED THE

OPPOSITION, THE LESS LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE.

Moreover, Martinet’s preliminary definition of the term ‘functional load’ does not

consider the number of minimal pairs belonging to different SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (not his

term). If there are many minimal pairs, but the respective members of these pairs belong to

different syntactic categories, communicative success should not be jeopardized upon merger;

the functional load of this opposition may be low, and so tendencies toward merger of the

opposition might not be curtailed. THE LOWER THE NUMBER OF RELEVANT MINIMAL PAIRS

WITHIN A GIVEN SYNTACTIC CATEGORY, THE MORE LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE;

THE HIGHER THE NUMBER OF RELEVANT MINIMAL PAIRS WITHIN A GIVEN SYNTACTIC CATEGORY,

THE LESS LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE.

5

Also, it is important to consider the TOKEN FREQUENCY (again, not his term) of each

member. If token frequency of one or both members of the relevant minimal pairs is low, then

the functional load of this opposition may be low as well, and so merger might not be curtailed.

If token frequency of one or both members of the relevant minimal pairs is high, then the

functional load of this opposition may be high as well, and so merger might be curtailed. THE

LOWER THE TOKEN FREQUENCY OF ONE OR BOTH MEMBERS OF THE RELEVANT MINIMAL PAIRS,

THE MORE LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE; THE HIGHER THE TOKEN FREQUENCY OF

ONE OR BOTH MEMBERS OF THE RELEVANT MINIMAL PAIRS, THE LESS LIKELY THAT MERGER

MIGHT TAKE PLACE.

Finally, ADDITIONAL MORPHOLOGICAL MARKERS may serve to disambiguate homophonic

sets. For example, Martinet writes that, even if the // - // opposition is lost in Parisian French,

the merged pair poignée – poignet will be disambiguated in the presence of gender-differentiated

singular markers. THE GREATER THE DISAMBIGUATING ROLE OF MORPHOLOGICAL MARKERS, THE

MORE LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE; THE LESSER THE DISAMBIGUATING ROLE OF

MORPHOLOGICAL MARKERS, THE LESS LIKELY THAT MERGER MIGHT TAKE PLACE.

To summarize, according to Martinet, the tendency toward merger of an opposition is

favored to the extent that:

1) The values in opposition are phonetically similar

2) The number of minimal morpheme pairs that the opposition is responsible for is low

3) The number of minimal pairs within a correlated opposition is low (or the opposition is

uncorrelated)

4) The minimal pairs belong to different syntactic categories

5) The token frequency of one or both members of the minimal pairs is low

6) The presence of additional morphological markers serves a disambiguating function

6

Ultimately however, merger is not likely to take place simply because SOME of the

relevant morphemes have a low token frequency, or because SOME of the relevant minimal pairs

happen to belong to different syntactic categories, etc. Rather, these totals must be

CUMULATIVELY low across the totality of the lexicon in use. After all, if sounds are to merge,

then, according to Martinet’s ‘functional load’ criteria, the output of the process—ACROSS THE

LEXICON IN USE—should not yield a significant increase in the amount of communicative

confusion.

Armed with this intuitively appealing definition of functional load, Martinet is

nonetheless quick to retreat:

…[I]t is clear that the functional yield of an opposition can only be evaluated with

any degree of accuracy if we deal with linguistic stages for which fairly

exhaustive word lists are available. This circumstance makes it practically

impossible to check the validity of the functional assumption in the case of

prehistoric sound shifts. (p.9)

7

King, in his 1967 rejoinder to Martinet, implicitly acknowledges this problem in

quantifying functional load: it is extremely difficult—or, at the time of King’s writing, perhaps

downright impossible—to gauge the degree of functional load in accordance with Martinet’s

criteria both before and after a merger has taken place, that is, at two different stages of a

language’s development. In his attempt to do just this, however, King embraces neither

Martinet’s ‘unsophisticated’ first approximation of the term’s working definition (the number of

minimal pairs involving phonetically similar values), nor Martinet’s qualifiers (the role of

correlated oppositions, the role of syntactic category, the role of token frequency, the role of

morphology). Instead, he proposes his own criteria for the determination of functional load,

crucially excluding the overriding importance of minimal pairs. King’s investigation of the role

of ‘functional load’ in Icelandic, Old Saxon, German, and Yiddish vowel changes provides

largely negative results, that is, ‘functional load’ (according to his criteria) does not seem to be a

genuine force acting on patterns of sound change.

King’s definition of the term ‘functional load’ possesses two components (p.836):

(1) ‘The global text frequencies of the two phonemes involved.’

(2) ‘The degree to which [the two phonemes] contrast in all possible environments,

where environment means, roughly speaking, one phoneme to the left and right.’

8

Regarding his first criterion, note that the raw frequency of a given set of phonemes does

not provide any direct information about the role that this opposition plays in keeping

morphemes phonologically distinct from one another. For example, if we tally the raw frequency

of similar values [] and [], then words that contrast [ab] versus [ab] are clearly relevant to

the functional load of the []-[] opposition; these are minimal pairs. However words that

contrast [ab] versus [ab] would also be relevant to the []-[] opposition, despite the fact they

are not minimal pairs. Consequently, this first criterion fails to capture the genuinely relevant

property that a proper characterization of functional load requires, that is, that the opposition

create minimal pairs.

Regarding his second criterion, King would propose that instances of our example

phonemes [] and [] should be counted toward the functional load of the []-[] opposition

when immediately flanked by identical values, say, [a] and [b]. Consequently, words that

contrast [ab] versus [ab] are, once again, clearly relevant to the functional load of the []-[]

opposition, as these are minimal pairs. However, words that contrast [abc] versus [abd] would

also be relevant to the []-[] opposition, despite the fact that they are not minimal pairs.

Consequently, this second criterion also fails to capture the genuinely relevant property that a

proper characterization of functional load requires.

Instead of considering the role that minimal pairs play in the tendency toward merger,

King floats the following three hypotheses regarding the likelihood of merger (p.834ff; emphasis

added):

9

(1) The weak point hypothesis: ‘if all else is equal, sound change is more likely to start within

oppositions bearing low functional loads than within oppositions bearing high functional

loads; or, IN THE CASE OF A SINGLE PHONEME, A PHONEME OF LOW FREQUENCY OF

OCCURRENCE IS MORE LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED BY SOUND CHANGE THAN IS A HIGH-

FREQUENCY PHONEME.’

(2) The least resistance hypothesis: ‘if all else is equal, and if (for whatever reason)

there is a tendency for a phoneme x to merge with either of the two phonemes Y or z,

then that merger will occur for which the functional load of the merged opposition

is smaller: i.e. x > y if L(x, y) is smaller than L(x, z), and x > z if L(x, z) is smaller

than L(x, y), where L(x, y) designates the functional load of the opposition x y,

and > designates merger.’

(3) THE FREQUENCY HYPOTHESIS: ‘IF AN OPPOSITION X Y IS DESTROYED BY MERGER,

THEN THAT PHONEME WILL DISAPPEAR IN THE MERGER FOR WHICH THE RELATIVE

FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE IS SMALLER: I.E. X > Y IF THE RELATIVE FREQUENCY

OF X IS SMALLER THAN THAT OF Y, AND Y > X IF THE RELATIVE FREQUENCY OF Y

IS SMALLER THAN THAT OF X.’

10

The first component of his ‘weak point’ hypothesis, as well as his ‘least resistance’

hypothesis, purport to specifically target oppositions with low functional loads. However, as just

discussed, King’s criteria for the determination of functional load do not accord with Martinet’s,

as they do not directly isolate the number of relevant minimal pairs that would be rendered

homophonous upon merger. Further, note the italicized portions of his three criteria. King is

especially concerned with the phonetic quality of the merged values: does, say, [] become [],

or does [] become []? But surely, in terms of the functional consequences of a merged

opposition, directionality does not matter. Whether [] merges towards [], or [] merges toward

[], the functional result is the same: a certain number of morphemes that were previously

distinguished solely by the []-[] opposition will be rendered non-distinct from each other.

Furthermore, King does not consider whether the relevant forms are in the same or different

syntactic categories; nor does he consider whether the token frequencies of the relevant forms are

high or low; nor does he consider whether additional morphological markers do or do not serve a

disambiguating function.

King readily acknowledges that ‘Language has…manifold devices for carrying on its

business of communication [and] distinctiveness lost at the phonological level might be assumed

without interruption of communication by higher-level markers in morphology and syntax’

(p.849), but this CAVEAT remains unexplored. Given his method of determining the functional

load of an opposition—with its under-emphasis on the role of minimal pairs, and its over-

emphasis on the role of the directionality of the merger—any numerical investigation of the

concept of ‘functional load’ using King’s criteria cannot be taken as evidence (either supporting

or disconfirming) of Martinet’s proposal (see Hockett 1967 for further concerns about King’s

investigation).

11

It is NOT the purpose of the present study to investigate the role that ‘functional load’ may

or may not play in (diachronic) sound mergers; Martinet’s original concerns appear fully

justified in that, even at our present level of knowledge, extensive information about the lexicon

in use is exceedingly difficult to ascertain for TWO different stages of a language, both before and

after a merger takes place (but see Surendran & Niyogi 2003, 2006 for an example from

Cantonese). Instead, in this paper I report on a case study of (synchronic) neutralization and its

functional consequences. Upon the neutralization of contrastive values, morphemes may be

rendered homophonous in cases where the neutralized opposition elsewhere serves to minimally

distinguish the forms. We might therefore employ Martinet’s ‘functional load’ criteria in order to

investigate patterns of neutralization in terms of the amount of homophony that results. With

today’s computer-tallied corpora, such investigations may be readily undertaken.

Taking all of Martinet’s criteria into account, the hypothesis explored herein is

straightforward:

Neutralizing alternations are more likely to be present in a language if their outputs do

not significantly increase the level of homophony; DERIVED HOMOPHONY IS NOT

EXCESSIVE.

12

The wording of this hypothesis is intentionally vague, because I do not pretend to be able

to zero in on a numerical upper limit of derived homophony. While this value may ultimately be

empirically ascertained by thoroughly investigating many languages, I herein merely intend to

show that, in a given language—the focus of this paper is neutralization in Korean—the amount

of derived homophony is remarkably low.

I argue herein that certain natural tendencies toward neutralization were tolerated in

Korean exactly because of concomitant morphological developments that maintained lexical

contrast. My proposal is that, in Korean, many patterns of neutralization were tolerated—and

continue to expand—due to the huge influx of Chinese nouns during the Middle Korean period.

The expansion of neutralizing alternation in Korean began in earnest due to the aplosive nature

of Middle Chinese root-final stops, which were largely imported into the Korean vocabulary,

supplanting Native Korean nouns, and influencing the phonotactics and word-building processes

of the language at large. For example, Middle Korean root-final , and

perhaps all eventually became when lexically non-prevocalic.

13

Clearly, this much neutralization runs the risk of creating a significant amount of

homophony. However, as numerically documented in Sections 1 and 4, Contemporary Korean

possesses remarkably little homophony. In the case of nouns—the lexical category investigated

herein—any potential functional damage caused by this massive collapse of contrast was avoided

by the concomitant development of a pervasive compounding process, which was also likely due

to contact with Chinese. As compounding rendered nouns longer, phonetic distinctness among

them was increased significantly, thus offsetting any counter-functional consequences of

neutralization itself. In the case of the verb vocabulary (not under investigation here), obligatory

suffixation, usually with vowel-initial allomorphs for consonant-final roots, results in root-final

stop plosivization (release into a vowel). Consequently, for verbs, root-final laryngeal values are

implemented in their canonical fashion, that is, at stop release (Kingston 1985, Bladon 1986,

Silverman 1995). Indeed, Chinese-influenced compounding may have served a dual role in this

scenario. First, it offset the potential homophony that neutralization might have otherwise

induced in the noun system, and second, due to this, it may have sped the natural tendency

toward neutralization, as there were now fewer functional pressures that would inhibit this

phonetically natural development.

As discussed in some detail in the concluding section, goal-directed behavior, speaker

intention, and teleology play no role here, nor anywhere else in phonology, for that matter. The

present-day patterns of neutralization are simply the passive consequence of selectional pressures

acting on the variation inherent in speech and language. Homophony was minimal at the outset,

and, despite an ever-increasing amount of neutralization, has remained minimal to the present

day.

14

In Section 1 I investigate the extent of potential homophony due to aplosivization in

Contemporary Korean by investigating word structure in the Sejong Project corpus, an online

database of several million words gathered from written sources (http: //sejong.or.kr/). I find that,

despite the fact that a significant portion of the lexicon undergoes aplosivization, the amount of

derived homophony is remarkably meager. In Section 2 I trace the historical development of the

pattern, in particular, placing it in the context of an ongoing trend of root-final consonant

contrast attrition. In section 3 I offer an account of the increasing pervasiveness of neutralizing

aplosivization: the influx of Chinese forms—with their aplosive root-final values, coupled with

their compound nature—came to induce both compounding, and an expansion of aplosivization

in Korean. In section 4 I consider subsequent routes to neutralization in Korean—nasal

lateralization, liquid nasalization, cluster reinforcement, assibilation, and nasal assimilation—

showing that these too induce little homophony. I also briefly consider variable assimilation of

both labials to dorsals, and coronals to labials and dorsals. I conclude that ‘functional load’ (in

the sense of Martinet) might indeed play a part in the diachronic comportment of linguistic sound

systems.

1. APLOSIVIZATION AND ANTI-HOMOPHONY IN KOREAN

15

Laryngeal neutralization is quite prevalent among non-prevocalic stops, and virtually

unattested among prevocalic ones (Lombardi 1991, Steriade 1995, 1997, 2000). This position of

neutralization typically involves THE LOSS OF STOP RELEASE, or APLOSIVIZATION. For

aerodynamic and auditory reasons, stop releases are the optimal location for laryngeally-based

cues (Kingston 1985, 1990, Bladon 1986, Silverman 1995, 1996, Wright 2004). If a stop is not

released into a more open gesture such as a vowel, it may lose the phonetic cues associated with

this interval of the speech stream, among them, cues to the state of the larynx. In the limiting

case, the perceptual distinction among contrastive laryngeal states is extinguished completely.

This is laryngeal neutralization due to aplosivization.

In this section I show, specifically, regarding the tendencies in merger vis-à-vis Korean

aplosivization:

THE TENDENCY TOWARD MERGER OF AN OPPOSITION IS FAVORED TO THE EXTENT THAT:

REGARDING APLOSIVIZATION IN KOREAN:

1) The values in opposition are phonetically similar 1) The values that neutralize are phonetically similar2) The number of minimal morpheme pairs that the

opposition is responsible for is low2a) The percentage of the lexicon that potentially

engages in neutralizing aplosivization is remarkably HIGH

2b) The number of minimal morpheme pairs that the opposition is responsible for is LOW

3) The number of minimal pairs within a correlated opposition is low (or the opposition is uncorrelated)

3) The relevant oppositions are HIGHLY CORRELATED

4) The minimal pairs belong different syntactic categories

4) The amount of derived homophony within a syntactic category is remarkably LOW

5) The token frequency of one or both members of the minimal pairs is low

5) The token frequency of at least one member of the relevant minimal sets is usually LOW

6) The presence of additional morphological markers serves a disambiguating function

6) In neutralized forms, the addition of morphological material—specifically, due to compounding (for nouns)—serves a disambiguating function

16

1.1 Aplosivization involves phonetically similar values, and is highly correlated

The tabular display in (1) highlights both the phonetic similarity, and the high degree of

correlation, among Korean’s neutralized aplosive values: voiced, aspirated, and glottalized

values, be they labial, coronal, or dorsal, all aplosivize when lexically non-prevocalic, as does

[]. (Shaded values do not alternate, as they never appear in morpheme-final position. Additional

alternations which nasalize root-final obstruents are considered in Section 4.)

Lexically prevocalic Lexicallynon-prevocalic

Plain Voiced Aspirated Tensed AplosiveLabial: A

lternatew

ith

Coronal:

()

Dorsal: k

17

Table 1Distribution of Korean obstruents (and [])

In (1) it is shown that the plain obstruents, the voiced plosives, the aspirated plosives (and

[]), and the tensed obstruents may appear before vowels in Korean. Aplosives are found

elsewhere, that is, in lexically non-prevocalic contexts. Due to the rich suffixing system in

Korean, the plosives (except for the plain plosives and the glottalized anterior plosives), the

fricatives, as well as [], all alternate with the aplosives. Two values neutralize to the labial

aplosive, seven values neutralize to the coronal aplosive, and three values neutralize to the dorsal

aplosive. Altogether, twelve values neutralize to three, which constitutes a remarkably high 75%

reduction in the number of contrasts here.

Some examples of alternating values are provided in (2) (adapted from Jun 2007).

Plosive: Aplosive: Gloss:

(a) Locative (-e) (b) Nominative (-i) (c) Isolation Form

Labial:

Alternates w

ith

rice leaf

Coronal:

clothes field day

light

Dorsal: soup

kitchen outside

18

Table 2Examples of plosive-aplosive alternation in Korean

In (2), note especially that there is an array of laryngeal distinctions in root-final position

when a vowel-initial suffix is added (2a,b; underlined). However, these distinctions all neutralize

to their corresponding aplosive value when lexically non-prevocalic (2c; also underlined;

coronals palatalize before []).

1.2 A sizable portion of the lexicon engages in aplosivization

I have thus far established that a large set of CONTRASTIVE VALUES engages in aplosivization in

Korean. However, we do not yet know how many WORDS are potentially subject to this

neutralization. In this section, I numerically investigate this issue. I show that a rather significant

portion of the Korean noun inventory potentially engages in the alternation.

All told, Sejong Project the corpus lists 34,803 DIFFERENT nouns (not the number of

TOKENS). Of this total, 10,412 nouns possess aplosive alternants: 5,132 are word-final, and 5,280

are word-internal. These are pooled by their word- and morpheme-final plosive alternants in (3).

(In theory, a given form may be counted more than once if, for example, it possesses both word-

internal and word-final aplosive alternants, though this rarely seems to occur.)

Labials Coronals Dorsals

Value Number of words Value Number

of words Value Number of words

#+

1,154762

#d+

30

#+

3,5223,272

p#p+

18933

#+

6360

k#k+

121

p#+

00

#+

00

k#k+

158

19

#+

1041

#+

7443

#+

00

#+

257612

()#()+

05

#+

02

#+

1,343795

#+

407763

#+

3,5493,281

Total: 2,138 Total: 1,170 Total: 6,8305299 nouns possess word-final neutralized aplosive alternants;

4839 nouns possess neutralized word-internal aplosive alternants;10,138 out of 34,803 nouns; 29% of all nouns

20

Table 3Distribution of word-final (#) and morpheme-final (+) obstruents/h for 10,412 nouns, from The

Sejong Project.

At 29%, it is clear that the proportion of the noun vocabulary that is subject to

neutralizing aplosivization is not at all insignificant. However, it is important to note that a full

19.2% of consists of []-final elements, and that there are only 35 words with which these words

might alternate. A further 6% are []-final, which potentially neutralize with only 72 other

forms.

1.3 Derived homophony due to aplosivization is remarkably low

At this point in our discussion we have determined that, not only is neutralizing aplosivization

highly correlated in Korean—affecting a sizable number of the system’s contrastive values—but

also, a sizable proportion of the noun inventory (29% ) may be subject to the process. Even when

considering the high incidence of []- and []-final noun morphemes, these numbers do not bode

especially well for our hypothesis that derived homophony is not excessive.

Korean indeed possesses nouns that are rendered homophonous as a consequence of

aplosivization. An oft-cited example of derived noun homophony is provided in (4).

[- day (subject) [ - day and face (subject) [ - face and sickle (subject) [ - sickle and

21

Table 4Derived homophony in Korean

The Native Korean words for ‘day,’ ‘face’, and ‘sickle’ are phonetically distinct when

suffixed with the vowel-initial suffix [ (the subject marker). However, when any of these

words is suffixed with a consonant-initial suffix such as [] (‘and’), the root-final obstruent

aplosivizes to [], and the words are rendered phonetically indistinct.

How extensive is derived homophony? Among the 10,412 nouns that are subject to

aplosivization, the sets in (5) comprise an exhaustive list of homophonous words. (Certain words

in the corpus have eluded a dictionary search, and are unfamiliar to native speakers of Korean

[‘UNKNOWN’]. The significance of these errors is discussed in section 4.6.). These facts, coupled

with the very low token frequencies here, suggest that these are mere spelling errors documented

in the Sejong Project corpus.) Not including these suspect forms, in total, only 15 sets (32 words

in all)—out of a total of 34,803 nouns in the corpus—are subject to derived homophony due to

aplosivization.

22

It should be emphasized that the Sejong Project corpus tallies INFLECTED WORDS ACROSS

THE LEXICON IN USE, and not simply bare roots. Consequently, it is not the case that ALL

potential derived homophonic ROOTS are documented here. Indeed, certain known potentially

homophonous roots are absent from the corpus in their bare form, for example, [] (lacquer)

– [] (clothing). Rather, the list in (5) consists of those WORDS documented in the Sejong

Project corpus—whether bare roots or inflected—that are homophonous as a consequence of

neutralizing aplosivization. This is an important distinction, because the present investigation

intends to document homophony across the lexicon IN USE, and not across the lexicon IN TOTO.

(The version of the Sejong Project corpus used here is the same as that used in Albright 2008.

Hangul was Romanized by A. Albright using HCode Hangul Code Conversion software [Lee

1994]. Tokens counts are discussed in section 1.4.)

Set number NeutralizedIPA

Word number Root IPA Hangul Token count Gloss

1 1 젖 44 breast/milk2 젓 5 salted fish

2

3

젓가락 27 chopsticks

4

젖가락 3 UNKNOWN

3 5 집 9 house6 짚 19 straw

4 7 좆 21 penis8 좇 2 UNKNOWN

5 9 입 1,139 mouth10 잎 158 leaf

6 11 것 40,544 one12 겉 120 surface

7 13 맛 392 taste14 맡 3 nearby place

8 15 밀집 21 crowd

24

16 밀짚 2 straw

9 17 낮 294 day18 낯 91 face19 낫 25 sickle

10

20 오지랍 4 UNKNOWN

21 오지랖 3 front of outer

garment

11 22 박 581 gourd23 밖 1,568 exterior

12 24 밭 380 heritage25 받 2 field

13 26 빛 726 light27 빚 128 debt28 빗 6 comb

14 29 볕 32 sunshine

30 볏 6 crest (of fowl)

15

31 새우젓 8 UNKNOWN

32 새우젖 2 salted

shrimp

16 33 숯 14 charcoal34 숱 7 hair density

17 35 덫 31 trap36 덧 4 a short time

18 37 테잎 2 tape38 테입 9 UNKNOWN

19

39 집단 400 group

40 짚단 12 sheaf of straw

20

41

낯짝 5 face

42

낮짝 2 UNKNOWN

21

43

빗줄기 16 sheets of rain

25

44

빛줄기 2 rays of light

22

47 닦달 8 scolding

48 닥달 3 UNKNOWN

15 actual sets (7 due to spelling errors); 32 nouns out of 34,803; 46,781 tokens out of 1,234,323

26

Table 5Homophonic noun sets due to aplosivization

The exhaustive list in (5) makes it clear that the counter-functional consequences of

neutralizing aplosivization among nouns must be exceedingly meager: only 32 out of 34,803

nouns are homophonous due to aplosivization. Each set in (5) possesses at least one Native

Korean noun. This is to be expected, because Sino-Korean forms do not possess root-final

laryngeal distinctions, and so are not subject to neutralizing aplosivization.

As pointed out by Surendran & Niyogi (2006), totals such as those presented here acquire

greater significance when they are compared to values that are NOT eligible for derived

homophony. Word-initial values provide a relevant comparison to word-final values, because the

set of contrastive values allowed root-initially is very similar to (though larger than) the set of

values allowed root-finally, and are, of course, not subject to aplosivization. In (6) I compare the

number of words and the number of minimally distinctive sets, in both word-initial and word-

final position.

Labials Coronals DorsalsWord-initial Word-final Word-initial Word-final Word-initial Word-final4,323 words 1,202 words 15,988 words 408 words 5,814 words 3,524 words

100 sets 4 sets 1,755 sets 10 sets 57 sets 1 set26,125 nouns begin with obstruents, out of 34,803;

1,912 sets of would-be word-initial homophonic sets due to laryngeal neutralization5,299 words end with obstruents;

15 homophonic sets due to aplosivization

27

Table 6Would-be homophonic noun sets due to word-initial laryngeal neutralization versus genuine sets

of homophones due to word-final aplosivization

It is quite clear from these figures that the functional load of word-initial obstruent

oppositions is far heavier than their word-final counterparts: 26,125 nouns begin with obstruents,

out of 34,803; 1,912 sets would be word-initial homophonic sets due to laryngeal neutralization;

5,134 words end with obstruents; 15 homophonic sets are due to aplosivization. This should not

be surprising. Recall my proposal that languages do not evolve towards a state in which derived

homophony is excessive; a language will never tolerate neutralization should it induce excessive

homophony. Laryngeal neutralization among Korean root-initial plosives would induce just such

an excessive amount of homophony.

The comparison in (6) is NOT stacking the deck in my favor. The fact that word-initial

neutralization is a phonetically implausible development does NOT confound the significance of

these asymmetrical findings. Rather, it compounds their significance. Languages naturally

evolve toward states that exploit the acoustic/auditory space to good advantage, and so lexicons

are naturally structured such that more words are distinguished in contexts that are capable of

saliently encoding critically distinctive cues, for example, lexically prevocalic contexts over

lexically non-prevocalic ones.

1.4 THE TOKEN FREQUENCY OF ONE OR MORE MEMBERS OF THE HOMOPHONIC SETS IS

USUALLY LOW

28

We have thus far established that the potential for derived homophony due to aplosivization is

remarkably limited. But how frequent are the words that actually engage in this counter-

functional alternation? In fact, words which engage in aplosivization typically have a low token

count. Above, in (5), I provide the token counts of all the relevant forms, tallied from the Sejong

Project corpus. While the mean token count among nouns is 35, eight of the 15 noun sets possess

at least one member with a token count below ten. While there are 46,781 tokens, a full 40,544

are of one word (것), while its homophone (겉) has a token count of 120. If we discount this one

set—which, due to the high frequency of one word, and the low frequency of its homophone, is

scarcely likely to induce confusion—then out of 1,234,323 noun tokens total number of

homophones due to aplosivization reduces to 6,117. This is a very low level of homophony.

1.5 Summary of the Korean aplosivization pattern

I first considered the number of CONTRASTIVE VALUES that engage in neutralizing aplosivization

in Korean, finding this total to be remarkably high: three correlated oppositions—voiced,

aspirated, and tensed values, be they labial, coronal, or dorsal (also [])—all neutralize to their

aplosive counterparts when lexically non-prevocalic. In all, twelve values reduce to three.

I next determined that a sizable portion of the noun inventory—29%—is subject to the

neutralization process. All sets possess Native Korean forms, since Sino-Korean forms do not

possess root-final laryngeal distinctions.

Despite these high values, the number of homophonic sets within the noun inventory

turned out to be remarkably low: only 14 sets of nouns (30 nouns in all) are occasionally

rendered homophonous as a consequence of neutralizing aplosivization.

29

Significantly, there is a very strong tendency for one or more members of each set to

have a low token frequency.

Finally, it must be emphasized that our numerical investigation has only uncovered the

raw amount of homophony due to aplosivization. What remains unexplored is the actual

incidence of communicative confusion, that is, semantic ambiguity. Whatever this total turns out

to be, it is likely to be exceedingly low.

The most salient—and saliently divergent—findings of our discussion are:

(1) KOREAN APLOSIVIZATION INDUCES THE NEUTRALIZATION OF A REMARKABLY HIGH

NUMBER OF OPPOSITIONS: twelve values neutralize to three. 29% of the nouns are

subject to neutralizing aplosivization.

(2) KOREAN APLOSIVIZATION INDUCES THE HOMOPHONY OF A REMARKABLY LOW

NUMBER OF NOUNS: 15 sets of nouns are homophonous (32 nouns out of 34,803—

<0.1%; 6,117 noun tokens out of 1,234,323 tokens—<0.1%).

These wildly divergent results call out for an explanation. How did it happen that so

much neutralization developed in Korean, with such negligible counter-functional consequences?

Neogrammarians—and, in fact, anyone subscribing to a theory in which language change in

general, and sound change in particular, takes place completely independently of functional

considerations—would be forced to attribute this result to sheer dumb luck. As sound change is

blind, so the story goes, Korean could just as easily have evolved its pattern of neutralization

even if the resulting homophony were excessive.

30

Rather, these divergent results are, in fact, INTIMATELY RELATED: the neutralization of so

many values is tolerated in Korean EXACTLY BECAUSE it has a negligible effect on the amount of

derived homophony. How this came to pass requires an investigation of the history of Korean,

especially in the context of its extensive contact with Middle Chinese. I turn to this issue now.

2. THE HISTORY OF KOREAN NEUTRALIZATION VIS-À-VIS SINO-KOREAN COMPOUNDING

Korean has witnessed a massive influx of Chinese words in its distant past—beginning at

least 1300 hundred years ago, with the greatest amount of borrowing during the Kolye Dynasty,

about 1000 to 600 years ago—which served to supplant a significant portion of its native

vocabulary, particularly its noun inventory. During the era of borrowing, Chinese possessed a

very limited set of consonants in root-final position: [, , , , , ]. The Korean of this

era had these endings, though Middle Chinese final [t] was typically—and oddly—incorporated

into Korean as [l]. This is odd since, as stated, Native Korean indeed possessed [t]-final words.

However, it was usually transcribed ‘[]’ in an apparent effort to call attention to its

phonetically checked nature, at least in prescriptive pronunciations. Martin (1997) plausibly

suggests that the sound in question was borrowed as a flap ([]). The dearth of roots with final [t]

even in Middle Korean—only forty-eight verbs and a few nouns, according to Martin (1997)—

suggests a frequency effect: the loan pattern may have been influenced by the infrequency of

Native Korean [t]-final roots, and the high frequency of Native Korean [/]-final roots. Though

nothing crucial hinges on this issue, and though the issue is far from resolved (indeed, I am doing

Martin an injustice by so simplifying his remarkably detailed discussion), I herein operate under

the assumption that Middle Chinese root-final [] was borrowed as [], and alternated with []

when non-prevocalic, much as this value does today.

31

In addition to these simple stop endings, Korean roots possessed what Martin (1992)

terms ‘overstuffed’ endings, among them , pt, , , , , , , , , ,

, , , , , , , , , (the affricates were not yet palatalized; they were

dental) (Martin 1992, Sohn 1999, Song 2005) Up to 600 years ago, Martin believes that these

endings were realized intact when a vowel followed, but by 400 years ago were reduced to a

single member when non-prevocalic. Contemporary Korean root-final tensed values seem to be

the subsequent reflexes of at least some of these previously complex root-final clusters; other

root-final clusters survive to the present. Also around this time, root-final all

reduced to when non-prevocalic

By 400 years ago, non-prevocalic [s] (which was now an alternant of )

had succumbed to aplosivation, neutralizing to [t]. However, Manchu and Mongol loanwords

were transcribed with a final [s] as recently as 200 years ago. In the case of final [h], it was

dropped word-finally, but realized as post-aspiration when a lexical stop followed. In

Contemporary Korean, root-final [h] has been completely eliminated among noun roots,

surviving only in some (morphologically complex) forms.

32

Significantly, the simplification of root-final obstruent values continues into the present

day. Whereas past neutralizing values have primarily been among NON-PREVOCALIC alternants,

in present-day Korean there are additional neutralizations among PREVOCALIC root-final values,

though, again, with negligible counter-functional consequences. For example, according to Jun

(2007), young Korean speakers are introducing a significant amount of variation in the phonetic

values among prevocalic root-final obstruents, though with preferences for some values over

others. Among roots that heretofore have contrasted [] prevocalically, there is

now a substantial amount of variation among these values. In other words, the distinction among

these prevocalic root-final values appears to be breaking down. Simplifying somewhat, among

the coronals, is the favored variant; among the labials ([])is the favored

variant; among the dorsals ([, k]), [] is the favored variant. These favored variants are

also the most frequent in terms of the number of words that possess them, as can be readily

observed in the tabular displays in (3). Jun suggests that this is no coincidence: the TOKEN

PREVALENCE of some VARIANTS over others may be a consequence of the LEXICAL PREVALENCE

of some VALUES over others (See also Kim 2001, Ito 2006, Kang 2006, and Albright 2008 on

this topic).

33

Several additional points should be highlighted. First, Kang (2006) observes that those

coronal-final roots varying toward [s] tend to be low frequency items. Second, the variable

change from root-final [t] to [s] is not limited to Contemporary Korean. Rather, Ito (2006)

observes that since the Middle Korean period, ten (out of 13) [t]-final roots have changed to [s].

Third, Ito observes that Middle Korean root-final coronals that changed to [s] were nouns only,

never verbs. Fourth and finally, Ito finds that polysyllabic nouns were much more likely to

change to [s] than were monosyllabic nouns. The significance of these points is discussed in

Section 5.

The upshot is that root-final obstruents are becoming increasingly subject to

neutralization, both non-prevocalically AND prevocalically. The tabular display in (8) provides a

simplified timeline of this diachronic process. Note in particular that root-final consonant

clusters are NOT listed in (7), and thus the introduction of root-final glottalized obstruents (from

earlier root-final clusters) actually involves a DECREASE in the number of root endings, and not

the increase that is suggested by the display.

Labials Coronals DorsalsKorean consonantal root endings, lexically prevocalic, >600 years ago (bold values are also Sino-Korean): ()

Korean consonantal root endings, lexically non-prevocalic, >600 years ago:

Korean consonantal root endings, lexically prevocalic, >400 years ago: ()

Korean consonantal root endings, lexically non-prevocalic, >400 years ago:

Contemporary Korean consonantal root endings, lexically prevocalic (bold cells vary; bold values are preferred variants): ()

Contemporary Korean consonantal root endings, lexically non-prevocalic:

34

Table 7Simplified timeline of Korean obstruent root ending attrition

In short, the inventory of root-final values in Korean seems to be in a rather constant—if

slow-going—state of attrition. Aplosivization induces a significant decrease in the number of

contrastive values in non-prevocalic position, and variation towards frequent values is inducing a

decrease even prevocalically. How this came pass is the focus of the following section.

3. SINO-KOREAN COMPOUNDING SERVED AS A CATALYST FOR NEUTRALIZATION

It is surely the case that Korean has always possessed at least some compounding, but during the

era of massive borrowing from Chinese (recall, the Kolye Dynasty, about 1000 – 600 years ago),

compounding in the noun vocabulary became one of the primary characteristics of the Korean

lexicon. Sohn (1999) discusses three layers of Sino-Korean compound words. For our purposes,

the first and third layers are the most important. The first layer consists of nouns borrowed

directly from Chinese. The list of examples in (8) is adapted from Sohn (p.104).

nature reception

heaven and earth question

preparation school

student filial son

effort direction

rich year parents

change life

body sun

clothes manners

35

Table 8Sino-Korean words from Chinese (adapted from Sohn 1999, 104)

The third layer consists of Sino-Korean compound nouns that were not directly borrowed

from Chinese, but instead were coined in Korea. These are exemplified in (9), again adapted

from Sohn (p.104).

rice field-dry field paddies and dry fields all-horn bachelor day-energy weather outside-upside on credit blessing-virtue-room real estate agency

comfortable paper letter four-pillar one’s destiny year three-inch uncle

husband’s side-home family of one’s husband

eating-mouth family, members of a family

six-inches second cousin

36

Table 9Sino Korean words coined in Korea (adapted from Sohn 1999, 104)

While the first layer (direct borrowings) consists primarily of academic and scientific

terms due to contact with the Chinese intelligentsia, the third layer (native coins) are a later

development, perhaps best viewed as a result of ‘trickling down’: as Sino-Korean vocabulary

began to pervade the language of the elite, its patterns of word formation came to influence

lower social strata.

The huge influx of Sino-Korean nouns was largely coincident with the onset of root-final

attrition. Although COINCIDENT, this development was surely not COINCIDENTAL, for, as noted,

the Chinese of the lending era possessed only [, , , , , ] in root-final position.

Consequently, the Sino-Korean vocabulary lacked the ‘overstuffed’ root-endings found in Native

Korean. What seems to have happened is that this property came to influence Korean

phonotactics at large: THE SLOW-GOING ATTRITION OF THE KOREAN SYSTEM OF ROOT-FINAL

VALUES DOCUMENTED IN SECTION 2 WAS LIKELY SET IN MOTION BY THE INFLUX OF SINO-

KOREAN FORMS.

The obvious question that arises (and for which I have already proposed an answer) is

this: if the influx of Chinese compounds into Korean set in motion an attrition of root-final

values, how did Korean avoid developing excessive homophony? The answer, of course, is

inherent in the question itself: THE ATTRITION OF ROOT-FINAL VALUES WAS OFFSET BY THE

COMPOUNDING NATURE OF THE SINO-KOREAN VOCABULARY. Two heads are better than one:

compounding greatly increased the opportunity for nouns to contrast with each other. Any

limitations on the number of contrasts imposed by the smaller inventory of root-final consonants

is offset by these roots’ combining and recombining into new and varied compounds.

37

Non-prevocalic aplosivization is a natural development, since, as stated, without a vowel

following, contrastive states of the glottis tend to be less saliently encoded in the speech signal.

However, simply because a sound change is natural does not entail that it will be actuated every

chance it gets. As noted by Martinet, functional factors may indeed play an intervening role. In

the case of Korean at least, it is likely that aplosive stops became so pervasive only because

communication was not adversely affected by the resultant neutralization: THE NUMBER OF

VALUES UNDERGOING APLOSIVIZATION INCREASED EXACTLY BECAUSE OF THE COMPOUNDING

THAT WAS INTRODUCED BY THE SINO-KOREAN VOCABULARY, WHICH OFFSET ANY COUNTER-

FUNCTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS.

It is almost unimaginable that Korean would have tolerated the attrition of its root-final

obstruent system had it resulted in extensive homophony/ambiguity of word meaning. Indeed, as

suggested in Section 1, Sino-Korean compounding may be seen as playing a dual role: first, it

offset the potential homophony that aplosivization might have otherwise induced in the noun

system, and second, due to this, it may have sped the attrition of root-final values, as there were

now fewer functional pressures that would inhibit this development.

Regarding verbs, which were NOT supplanted by Sino-Korean compounds, still, the

counter-functional effects of aplosivization were negligible. Since verbs are suffixed—and, not

coincidently, since consonant-final verbs are typically suffixed with vowel-initial allomorphs—

the consequences of aplosivization are trivial.

4. OTHER NEUTRALIZING ALTERNATIONS IN KOREAN INDUCE VERY LITTLE HOMOPHONY

38

As the preceding discussion has shown, components of the neutralizing aplosivization seem to

have been in place even before the Kolye Dynasty, and it was subsequent to this era—due to

Korean’s extensive contact with Chinese—that the pattern began to expand, coming to

incorporate affricate- and fricative-final roots, and, eventually leading indirectly to the

neutralization of certain non-prevocalic root-final values, though always with negligible counter-

functional consequences.

In fact, the pattern of root-final neutralization has not stopped there. In the centuries

following the Kolye Dynasty, a number of additional neutralizing alternations have entered the

language, affecting both root-final and following root-initial values. In this section I consider

five of these more recent routes to neutralization and potential homophony in Korean: nasal

lateralization (4.1), liquid nasalization (4.2), nasal assimilation (4.3), assibilation (4.4), and

cluster reinforcement (4.5) (Martin 1992). None of these neutralizing alternations induces a

significant amount of homophony. I also briefly consider variable assimilation of labials to

dorsals, and coronals to labials and dorsals (4.6).

In (10) I provide a chart of intervocalic values in Korean. The first column lists

morpheme-final consonants; the first row lists following morpheme-initial consonants, and the

table interior indicates the phonological values of these morphologically-ordered elements.

+CC+

40

Table 10Korean intervocalic values (bold-boxed cells are variably implemented; adapted from Martin

1992)

In all, there are 304 possible morphologically-ordered sequences here. Variable values

are bold-boxed. Including these among the neutralized values for now, the 304 morphologically

ordered sequences reduce to only 77 phonetic values. In this section I show that, despite this

drastic reduction in the number of intervocalic values, derived homophony remains minimal.

4.1 Nasal lateralization induces very little homophony

Nasals and laterals form a natural class in that they are the only consonants possessing

both formants and anti-formants. Coronal nasals in particular are acoustically similar to laterals,

as their formant transitions are rather comparable. It is little surprise, then, that coronal nasals

and laterals are readily confusable. In Korean, their perceptual confusability has apparently

culminated in a neutralizing alternation: a sequence of a lateral or tap and a coronal nasal in

either order is realized as a long lateral: [+, [+, [l+n] [(Kim-Renaud 1975,

Martin 1992, Davis & Shin 1999). This process entered the language about 400 years ago

(Martin 1992: 52).

41

As the non-prevocalic lateral alternates with the tap when prevocalic, the acoustic

connection between this latter alternant and the coronal nasal becomes rather tenuous. Though

aerodynamically a non-obstruent (since the duration of its oral closure is insufficient to

significantly reduce trans-glottal airflow), the tap possesses neither formants nor anti-formants; it

is an extremely short oral stop. However, critical to the implementation of a tap is an oral

opening both after AND BEFORE the oral closure: a tap is only a tap if the tongue makes BRIEF

contact with a passive articulator. In the context of a preceding gesture that involves prolonged

contact between these two articulators—such as a coronal nasal or a lateral—there is little

opportunity for the tongue to fall away from its contact site, and then quickly re-implement

contact. Rather, tongue contact is likely to be maintained—much like aplosivization—resulting

in a single gesture. This results in either a longer lateral or a longer coronal nasal. Nasal

lateralization, consequently, may be seen as an extension of aplosivization: due to the absence of

lateral or nasal release, tongue contact is maintained for the duration of the morphologically-

ordered consonantal sequence. Since laterals and the coronal nasal are confusable, the origins of

this neutralization pattern now come into focus.

It didn’t have to be this way, of course. If nasal lateralization were to induce excessive

homophony, Korean would likely have evolved a way to avoid this neutralizing alternation. But,

as shown in (11), the process induces remarkably little homophony.

42



1

1 찰라 5 UNKNOWN

2 찰나 22 a moment

2 3

환로 2 file

4 활로 11 bow

3 5 인류 179 humanity6 일류 32 peculiarity

4

7 일사분란 3 UNKNOWN

8 일사불란 7 being in

perfect order

5

9 건립 55 building10 걸립 9 alms rounds

6

11 권련 2 deep affection

12 궐련 10 cigarette

7 15 분리 124 separation16 불리 7 handicap

8

17 분량 61 quantity18 불량 40 inferiority

9 19 산림 35 woodland20 살림 179 lifestyle

10

21 신록 3 fresh verdure

22 실록 6 chronicle

11 23 술래 20 smell of liquor

24 술내 4 tagger

12

25 연락 220 connection26 열락 2 joy

10 actual sets (2 due to spelling errors); 20 words; 1001 tokens

43

Table 11Homophonic sets due to nasal lateralization

Out of 1,001 nouns in the corpus possessing , 681 derive from [+, 316 derive

from [+4 derive from [l+n]There are ten homophonic sets. Two additional cases

are probably false positives due to documented spelling errors. Eight of the actual sets possess at

least one member with a token count under ten. It is thus apparent that there were few functional

pressures acting against the development of this sound pattern. It seems, then, that the PHONETIC

confusion induced by the relevant sound sequences did not induce sufficient SEMANTIC

confusion to passively inhibit the conventionalization of this neutralizing alternation. Since

successful communication was not jeopardized as a consequence of any perceptual confusion

between the coronal nasal and the lateral/tap, neutralizing lateralization naturally came to hold

sway.

4.2 Liquid nasalization induces very little homophony

Another neutralizing alternation in Korean involves the nasalization of non-coronal obstruent –

liquid (tap) sequences: [+ [+ [(Kim-Renaud 1975, Martin 1992,

Davis & Shin 1999). This alternation is mentioned only in passing by Martin (1992); he does not

discuss when the pattern may have entered the language. Surely, there is no phonetic motivation

for the pattern. Rather, this alternation has the ‘feel’ of being analogically derived from nasal

assimilation. It is likely, therefore, that the alternation is a rather recent innovation.

44

In all, 695 nouns listed in the corpus possess the relevant sequences. There are 119 nouns

possessing (45 derive from [+, and 74 are lexical +), and 576 nouns possessing

(182 derive from +, and 394 are lexical [+). In (12) I provide an exhaustive list

of homophones due to liquid nasalization. There are eight cases in all, two of which are

suspected spelling errors.



1 1 정리 287 arrangement2 적리 3 dysentary

2

3 정립 71 triangular position

4 적립 4 accumulation

3 5 강론 8 sermon

6 각론 4 detailed exposition

4

7 구직난 2 unemploy-

ment problem

8 구직란 2 UNKNOWN

5 9 경리 14 UNKNOWN10 격리 37 quarantine

6

11 백련 15 white lotus

12 백년 5 century

7

13 병력 90 replacement depot

14 벽력 4 thunder and lightning

8

16 양력 26 solar

calender

16 약력 3 vita

6 actual sets (2 due to spelling errors); 12 words; 520 tokens

45

Table 12Homophonic noun sets due to liquid nasalization

In all, there are six homophonic sets of nouns, and two which may be the result of

spelling errors in the corpus. Excluding these two sets, a total of 520 nouns tokens (out of

1,234,323) are homophonous, which verges on 0% of the total.

4.3 Nasal assimilation induces very little homophony

Korean has a process of nasal assimilation such that any obstruent that comes to precede a nasal

becomes nasal itself (Kim-Renaud 1975, Martin 1992, Davis & Shin 1999). This process entered

Korean at least 600 years ago (Martin 1992: 52). There are two domains of application of this

pervasive process: across morpheme boundaries, and across word boundaries (Kim-Renaud

1975).

Regarding word internal nasal sequences, 559 are derived consequence of nasal

assimilation: 46 nouns possess +, 102 +, 271 +, 18 +, 47 +n, and 75

+. Meanwhile, there are 1,734 NON-derived nasal+nasal sequences: 127 + 473

+, 459 +, 97+, 184 +, and 394 +. In all then, there are 2,293

nasal-nasal sequences in the set of 34,803 nouns.

The sets in (13) constitute an exhaustive list of homophones found in the Sejong Project

corpus due to word-internal nasal assimilation.

46



1

1 작목 7 poor night

vision

2 장목 3 lumber

2

3 작물 35 crops

4 장물 14 loot

3

5 작문 24 composition

6 장문 5 wide-open

gate

4

7 작년 267 yesteryear

8 장년 8 prime of life

5

9

찬물 26 cold water

10

찻물 2 tea

6 11

학문 234 scholarship

12 항문 9 anus

7 13

곡물 20 corn

14 공물 3 tribute

8 *

15 구직난 2 unemploy-

ment problem

16 구직란 2 UNKNOWN

9

17 군막 3 military tent

18 굿막 3 miners’ hut

10 19

오랜만 116 UNKNOWN

20

오랫만 8 UNKNOWN

47

11

21 백련 15 white lotus

22 백년 5 century

12 23

벚나무 5 cherry tree

24 벗나무 2 UNKNOWN

13 25

성물 17 UNKNOWN

26 석물 5 stone figures

14 27

약물 42 medicinal waters

28 양물 7 penis

10 actual sets (4 due to spelling errors); 20 words; 732 tokens.*non-unique—already listed with lateral nasalization

48

Table 13Homophonic noun sets due to word-internal nasal assimilation

In all, there are ten homophonic sets out of 2,293 neutralized nouns in the list of 34,803

nouns (732 out of 1,234,323 tokens), and four probable spelling errors.

Hwang (2008) investigates the amount of potential noun homophony due to the word

boundary process. Her results in (14) show that a full 51% of all nouns (17,763 out of 34,803)

are potentially subject to neutralizing nasal assimilation (P=labial obstruent, T=coronal

obstruent, K=dorsal obstruent).

Labials Coronals DorsalsValue Number

of words% of total

Value Number of words

% of total


% of total

#P#

1,9131,343

5.33

#T#

5,477407

15.31

#K#

5,0743,549

14.1510

Total: 3,256 8.7 Total: 5,884 16.4 Total: 8,623 23.917,763 out of 34,803 nouns; 51% of all nouns

Table 14Potential word-final nasal-assimilated nouns

Despite the enormous amount of potential neutralization here, Hwang shows that a mere

2.8% of the noun inventory is potentially subject to derived homophony as a consequence of

nasal neutralization. Her results are displayed in (15).

49

Labials Coronals DorsalsValue Number

of words% of total


% of total


% of total

#P#

8789

.2

.2#T#

4459

0.10.1

#K#

354355

1.01.0

Total: 176 .4 Total: 103 0.25 Total: 709 2.0988 words out of 34,803 nouns; 2.8% of all nouns

Table 15Potential word-final nasal-assimilated homophones

Hwang is careful to point out that these numerical results do not show the actual rate of

homophonic usage. Rather, these totals merely indicate the POTENTIAL for derived homophony.

Crucially, any noun that might be subject to derived homophony as a consequence of nasal

assimilation must be immediately followed by a nasal in the next word. This being the case, the

amount of actual homophony is likely to be extremely low indeed. To get a sense of this value,

there are 3,404 nouns in the corpus that are nasal-initial. Assuming this is representative of the

language as a whole, this constitutes about 10% of the lexicon. This suggests that the likelihood

of derived homophony is likely to be one-tenth of 2.8%, or .28%. This result is in full keeping

with the remarkably low levels of derived homophony found elsewhere.

4.4 Coronal assibilation induces very little homophony

Coronal obstruents assibilate before , resulting in (neutralized) (Martin

1992). Out of the 34,803 nouns in the corpus, 131 words possess the relevant value: 41 lexical,

90 derived. There is a total of one homophonic set as a result of this alternation, 14 tokens in all,

as shown in (16).

50



1 1

빛살 12 light ray

2 빗살 2 comb teeth

1 set; 2 words; 14 tokens

51

Table 16Homophonic noun set due to word-internal coronal assibiliation

4.5 Cluster reinforcement induces no homophony

When a non-aspirated obstruent comes to follow another obstruent, the second value tenses

(Kim-Renaud 1975, Martin 1992). This is a neutralizing alternation. There are 4,048 nouns in the

corpus that possess word-medial tensed obstruents: 449 , 476 , 1017 , 1090

, and 1016 . In (17) I provide a list of the homophonic sets due to cluster

reinforcement. Allthree sets are false positives.



1 [

1[

짝꿍 3 buddy

2[

짝궁 2 UNKNOWN

2

3

깍두기 7 radish kimchi

4

깍뚜기 4 UNKNOWN

3

5

곱배기 3 UNKNOWN

6

곱빼기 3 double shot

no actual set (all due to spelling errors); 0 words; 0 tokens

52

Table 17Homophonic noun sets due to cluster reinforcement

4.6 Variable assimilation might induce more homophony (but might not…)

In colloquial Korean speech, coronals (excluding the lateral) variably assimilate to a following

consonant (Kim-Renaud 1975, Martin 1992), and labials variably assimilate to a following

dorsal. In theory, this assimilation process, unlike the others discussed herein, has the potential to

induce a non-negligible amount of homophony. In (18) I provide the total number of nouns that

are potentially subject to this process (18a) alongside the total number of non-variable (genuinely

morphologically-sequenced) values with which the variable forms might neutralize (18b).

Finally, I provide the total number of potentially homophonic sets (18c).

a. Variable contrastive value

Number of nouns

b. Non-variable contrastive value

Number of nouns

c. Number of potentially

homophonic sets+P ~ +P 126 ++P 92 No sets

+P ~ +P 683 +P 385 15 sets

+m] ~ + 575 + 173 No sets

+K ~ +K 171

+K 688 14 sets+K ~ +K 177

+K ~ +K 1217

+K 1,324 62 sets+K ~ +K 249

5,680 nouns; 91 potentially homophonic sets

53

Table 18Potential homophony due to variable assimilation

A sizable number of homophonic sets are possible here. An important point to keep in

mind, however, is that this is a VARIABLE pattern of neutralization: sometimes neutralization

occurs (more often in casual speech), and sometimes it doesn’t (more often in formal speech).

Jun (1995), for example, investigates the variable labial-to-dorsal obstruent assimilation pattern

using the aerodynamic methodology introduced by Silverman & Jun (1994). He reports gestural

reduction of labials (in + sequences) to occur about 35% of the time in casual speech, and

about 15% of the time in formal speech. However, Jun finds that this variable pattern does not

vary between discrete values versus . Rather the variation is gradient, such that

tokens may, in theory, fall anywhere on the phonetic continuum between these two endpoints.

This sort of variation sets up a situation in which NEAR-NEUTRALIZATIONS are practically

inevitable: some speech tokens are nearly—but, crucially, not completely—neutralized, and so

contrasts may remain recoverable despite the near-obliteration of their acoustic distinctiveness.

Many cases of near-neutralization are documented in the phonetics literature, increasingly so as

analytic techniques become more sophisticated (see, for example, Dinnsen & Charles-Luce 1984,

and Charles-Luce 1985 on Catalan, Port & O’Dell 1985, Charles-Luce 1985, Port & Crawford

1989 on German, Slowiaczek & Dinnsen 1985 on Polish, Pye 1986 on Russian, Warner,

Jongman, Sereno, and Kemps 2004 on Dutch, Bishop 2007 on Andalusian Spanish).

54

Among variable processes such as Korean coronal assimilation, it is quite possible that

potentially homophonic forms in particular are more likely to maintain their distinctive status

than are neutralized heterophones, at least in semantically ambiguous contexts. Charles-Luce

(1985), for example, finds that potential homophones in Catalan are more likely to remain

acoustically distinct from each other in semantically ambiguous contexts, in comparison to both

homophones in semantically transparent contexts, and to neutralized heterophones. Comparable

findings are reported for Dutch (Warner, Jongman, Sereno, and Kemps 2004).

Anecdotally, an informal, non-systematic dictionary investigation of potentially

homophonic sets due to variable coronal assimilation (approximately forty-five minutes checking

an online dictionary ‘Babylon Korean Dictionary’,

http://www.babylon.com/dictionary/1271/Babylon-Korean-English.html) yielded only a few

false-positives for words with optionally assimilated sequences. This suggests that such

sequences are indeed realized as VARIABLY and PARTIALLY assimilated, at least a significant

portion of the time. Were these sequences completely neutralized, we might expect a higher

number of false positives: completely neutralized forms are more likely subject to spelling errors,

since, for such forms, there is less spur-of-the-moment (while writing) evidence to suggest that

their phonetic properties are a consequence of (neutralizing) alternation. Indeed, the documented

spelling errors in the Sejong Corpus are not random, but instead, always reflect accurate

pronunciations of the (presumably intended) word.

55

In Section 0, I wrote that perceptual similarity can be tested by measuring the degree to

which sounds might be confused with one another. In a study to be undertaken soon, I hope to

reproduce Jun’s findings on the variable realization—and also the perception—of the relevant

assimilations in Korean, this time with an eye cast on potentially homophonous forms in both

semantically ambiguous and semantically transparent contexts. The findings of this study may

shed light on the issue of derived homophony and near-neutralization. (I note here that Kim and

Jongman [1996], in their investigation of Korean neutralizing aplosivization, find no evidence of

near-neutralization under any circumstances. That is, in the case of aplosivization at least—and

unlike coronal and labial assimilation—neutralization is apparently complete.)

4.7 Summary of neutralizing alternations in Korean

We have now investigated six neutralizing alternations that were introduced into Korean

subsequent to the expansion of the aplosivization pattern, which, in turn, was subsequent to—

and, by hypothesis, triggered by—the huge influx of aplosive Chinese compounds. I summarize

the numerical results in tabular form in (19).

56

Alternation

Number of nouns, both lexical and

derived(out of 34,803)

Number of homophonic sets

Number of homophonic tokens(out of 1,234,323)

Aplosivization 10,138 15 6,117 (46,781-40,664)Nasal lateralization 1,001 10 288Liquid nasalization 695 6 520Nasal assimilation 7,592 10 732

Coronal assibilation 131 1 14Cluster reinforcement 4,048 0 0

(VARIABLE ASSIMILATION) (5,680) (91) (UNDETERMINED)

Totals: 13,258 42 7,671

57

Table 19Summary of neutralizing alternations and derived homophony

In running Korean speech, out of 1,234,323 noun tokens encountered, chances are that

about 7,671 will be homophonous. This is a very low level of homophony.

5. FINAL REMARKS

I have argued that anti-homophony is a genuine pressure acting on language change.

Indeed, upon even the briefest reflection, it is patently obvious that language could never possess

excessive homophony—especially, homophony that induces listener confusion; language would

not be worth the air that carries it were it not successful in its communicative function.

This anti-homophonic pressure acting on language has been assumed by some to be

directly isolable in speakers’ intentions. King (1967: 850), for example, assumes that sound

changes due to ‘functional load’ must indeed be teleological in origin, hence are untenable: ‘The

theory of therapeutic sound change as developed especially in Prague School linguistics is

predicated on the assumption that the speaker, or at any rate some higher linguistic

consciousness, is aware of certain informational indices in his language—relative frequencies of

phonemes, functional loads of oppositions, etc. —and that the speaker (or his higher

consciousness, whatever it is) possesses the ability to act on this knowledge to avert possible

linguistic changes. I know of no empirical findings which support this assumption. I think,

therefore, that concrete evidence of the soundness of such an assumption should precede further

speculations on the nature of therapeutic sound change.’

58

But King’s conclusion is, quite frankly, unmotivated, because his premise is faulty: there

is no reason to assume that teleology, speaker intention, or any other form of goal-directed

behavior plays a role in functionally-motivated phonological change, any more than there is

reason to assume comparable forces acting on the evolution of species.

Even when there is a natural phonetic tendency toward a particular phonetic state, say

non-prevocalic aplosivization among obstruents, a given language will most likely NOT evolve

toward that state if excessive homophony were to result, for the very speech tokens that are

produced with homophone-inducing aplosives are also the very speech tokens that would likely

confuse listeners. And so, as a natural, passive consequence, such tokens would not be

reproduced as these listeners become speakers. Rather, in such a language, there is likely to be a

natural, passive maintenance of contrast—either through the maintenance of plosivization or by

some other means—for it is exactly those speech tokens that are communicated successfully to

listeners that are more likely to take hold, and become conventionalized as the speech norm.

Quite simply, successful speech variants, like successful mutations, are naturally selected.

By contrast, for a language like Korean, in which—due to the huge influence of Chinese

—root-final distinctions are not especially dependent on plosivization, we see massive

neutralization in root-final values both non-prevocalically, and even, increasingly,

prevocalically. Since communication remains unencumbered, natural tendencies towards such

simplifications encounter little resistance. As Labov writes (1994: 586), ‘It is not the desire to be

understood, but rather the consequence of misunderstanding that influences language change.

This mechanism implies a mismatch between producer and interpreter: the type of built-in

instability that we would expect to find behind long-term shifts in language behavior.’

59

Labov’s implication of the listener as a source of sound change should not be conflated

with the approach espoused by Ohala (1981). Ohala proposes that the misinterpretation of

speakers’ phonetic intentions may drive sound change. Listeners may misinterpret unintended

components of speakers’ speech as intended, and subsequently incorporate these components

into their own repertoire of (intended) articulatory routines (‘hypocorrection’). Conversely,

listeners may also misinterpret intended components of speakers’ speech as unintended, and

subsequently ‘undo’ these components in their own speech (‘hypercorrection’).

60

Labov’s role for the listener as source of sound change is somewhat different from Ohala’s

(though by no means must we assume that the two are mutually exclusive): instead of listeners

misinterpreting speakers’ PHONETIC intentions, listeners may misinterpret speakers’ SEMANTIC

intentions. Unlike phonetics, there is external reference in semantics, which provides fertile

ground for hypothesis testing. We can readily investigate whether listeners do or do not

apprehend speakers’ semantic intentions (see, for example, Casenhiser 2005 for experimental

evidence suggesting that children avoid homophony during language acquisition); by contrast,

we cannot investigate with any degree of confidence whether listeners do or do not apprehend

speakers’ phonetic intentions, since such intentions are wholly private activities, and are not

reliably documented by interview. If only for this reason, a Labovian role for listeners in sound

change seems a more promising theory than an Ohalaian one. As should be clear from all

previous discussion, this is the source—the mechanism—of anti-homophony proposed herein.

‘Language is a system of conventionalized patterns of usage that arises from the minor and

limited variations in which speakers naturally engage. The communicative success of certain

spontaneous innovations over others—especially in the face of potentially confusing,

homophonous forms—may very slowly, almost imperceptibly, drive the linguistic system in new

directions. Very minor phonetic tendencies, coupled with the ambiguities they might induce or

eschew, may eventually have far-reaching consequences for the phonological system.’

(Silverman 2006: 217).

61

Before I conclude, please consider several points left hanging from Section 2. Recall that

Jun (2007) finds that prevocalic root-final coronals are increasingly varying towards [] in

Contemporary Korean, and that Kang (2006) observes that these roots tend to be low frequency

items. Consistent with the hypothesis that ‘functional load’ is a genuine—if passive—pressure

on systems, it is exactly low frequency items that may be most susceptible to neutralizing

changes, as their functional load is low. Further, recall Ito’s (2006) finding that, since the Middle

Korean period, ten (out of 13) [t]-final noun roots have changed to []. This finding further

demonstrates the role of ‘functional load’ in sound change: were there many hundreds of []-

final nouns, there would likely have been a significant number of minimal pairs with []-final

forms. The fact that Middle Korean nouns with root-final coronals changed to [], not verbs, is,

once again, in full accordance with the hypothesis that ‘functional load’ is indeed a passive

pressure on sound systems: since nouns, unlike verbs, were subject to compounding, they may

readily endure the loss of root-final distinctions without undue counter-functional consequences.

This may further account for Ito’s finding that polysyllabic nouns were more likely to change to

[s] than were monosyllabic nouns.

Other patterns of alternation (nasal lateralization, nasal assimilation, liquid nasalization,

assibilation, and cluster reinforcement)—all of which seem to have entered Korean AFTER the

Kolye Dynasty—may also have been tolerated, and, indeed, sped along, exactly because they

had negligible counter-functional consequences. Thus, all of these slow-acting developments on

the sound pattern of Korean may be seen as responses—however indirect—to the contact that

Chinese and Korean enjoyed all those centuries ago.

62

Like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in that very same land, the consequences of

which may eventually produce a tornado in the American heartland, the Chinese lexicon of a

millennium ago may be seen as possessing a reach that continues to press—however passively—

on the minds of Korean speakers, even to this very day.

63

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1. For their help (which does not entail their endorsement of my conclusions), thanks to Adam Albright, David Etienne-Bouchard, Devin Casenhiser, Stuart Davis, Ik-Sang Eom, Andrew Garrett, Chris Golston, Bill Idsardi, Chiyuki Ito, Jongho Jun, Yoonjung Kang, Hahn Koo, Bruce Lyon, Öner Özçelik, Glyne Piggott, Richard Wiese, and members of my SJSU Phonology 2 class, S08. This paper is dedicated to the memory of my teacher, Peter Ladefoged.

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