현대 서울 방언 “ㅔ” /e/와 “ㅐ” /ɛ/의 음소자격과 합류에 대하여

초록

This study argues that despite the ongoing phonemic merger of the two non-high front vowels in modern Seoul Korean, i.e., /e/ ㅔ and /ɛ/ ㅐ, the vowels have not merged completely and need to be recognized as two separate phonemes in modern Seoul Korean. Many recent acoustic studies show that the F1 and F2 values of the two vowels are almost the same. Native speakers mostly identify the two vowels as the same. This study contends, however, that these two considerations are not sufficient for identification of the phonemes and that the two vowels have not completely merged in a diachronic perspective. The arguments are based on (1) discrepancy between phonetic and phonemic contrasts in general, (2) contextual allophony, i.e., allophonic variation (and neutralization) of the two vowels depending on phonological environments, (3) simpler formulation of umlauting in Seoul Korean, and (4) perceptual distinctions between the two vowels. A consequence is that phonemes may be abstract in that the representation of a phoneme may be dissimilar to that of a physically observable phonetic shape.

키워드