Korean phonology

This article is a technical description of the phonetics and phonology of Korean.

Korean has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish morphophonemes (written inside vertical pipes ) from corresponding phonemes (written inside slashes ) and allophones (written inside brackets ).

Consonants
The IPA symbol $⟨⟩$ (something like a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants. Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.

An alternative analysis proposes that the "tensed" series of sounds are (fundamentally) regular voiceless, unaspirated consonants; that the "lax" sounds are voiced consonants which become devoiced initially; and that the primary distinguishing feature between word-initial "lax" and "tensed" consonants is that initial lax sounds cause the following vowel to assume a low-to-high pitch contour – a feature reportedly associated with voiced consonants in many Asian languages – whereas tensed (and also aspirated) consonants are associated with a uniformly high pitch.

are voiced between voiced sounds, but voiceless elsewhere. Among younger generations, they may be just as aspirated as in initial position; the primary difference is that the following vowel carries a low tone. are strongly aspirated – more so than English voiceless stops. may be pronounced by some speakers, especially before back vowels.

The sibilant has behavior of both the plain and aspirated stops: it is aspirated, at least word-initially, and does not become voiced intervocalically like the plain stops, but has relatively brief contact (shorter than ), like the plain stops. The analysis of as phonologically plain or aspirated has been a source of controversy in the literature; phonetically, however, it is aspirated. are palatalized before.

tend to be denasalized word-initially. Often they are not actual stops either, but sometimes a stop release burst is audible, e.g. 그런데메밀 →. appears only between vowels and in the syllable coda.

is an alveolar flap between vowels or between a vowel and an ; and is  or  at the end of a word, before a consonant other than, or next to another. It is unstable at the beginning of a word, tending to become before most vowels, and silent before, though it is not uncommonly  in English loanwords.

Between vowels, may be voiced, or may become inaudible or disappear in many cases.

Vowels
Korean has 8 vowel phonemes and a length distinction for each. Long vowels are pronounced somewhat more peripherally than short ones. Two more vowels, the close-mid front rounded vowel ( ㅚ) and the close front rounded vowel ( ㅟ), can still be heard in the speech of some older speakers, but they have been largely replaced by the diphthongs and, respectively. In a 2003 survey of 350 speakers from Seoul, nearly 90% pronounced the vowel 'ㅟ' as. Length distinction is almost completely lost; length distinction for all vowels can still be heard from older speakers, but almost all younger speakers either do not distinguish length consistently or do not distinguish it at all. The distinction between and  is another decreasing element in the speech of some younger speakers, mostly in the area of Seoul, whereas in other dialectal areas the two vowels can be distinctly heard. For those speakers who do not make the difference, seems to be the dominant form. Long is actually  for most speakers.

Diphthongs and glides
Because they may follow consonants in initial position in a word, which no other consonant can do, and perhaps due also to hangul orthography, which transcribes them as vowels, semivowels such as and  are sometimes considered to be elements of diphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes.

Some analyses treat as a central vowel, and thus the marginal sequence  as having a central-vowel onset, which would be more accurately transcribed  or.

Positional allophones
Korean consonants have three principal positional allophones: initial, medial (voiced), and final (checked). The initial form is found at the beginning of phonological words. The medial form is found in voiced environments, intervocalically and after a voiced consonant such as n or l. The final form is found in checked environments, such as at the end of a phonological word or before an obstruent consonant such as t or k. Nasal consonants (m, n, ng) do not have noticeable positional allophones, though ng cannot appear in initial position.

The table below is out of alphabetical order in order to make the relationships between the consonants explicit.

All obstruents (stops, affricates, fricatives) become stops with no audible release at the end of a word: All coronals collapse to, all labials to , and all velars to. Final r is a liquid or.

ᄒ h does not occur in final position, though it does occur at the end of non-final syllables, where it affects the following consonant. (See below.) Intervocalically it is realized as voiced, and after voiced consonants it is either or silent.

ᄋ ng does not occur in initial position. In native Korean words, neither does ᄅ r, though it does in Chinese loans (Sino-Korean vocabulary), where in initial position it is silent before and, pronounced  before other vowels, and only pronounced  in compound words after a vowel. The prohibition on word-initial r is called the "initial law" (두음법칙) in South Korea. Initial r is officially pronounced in North Korea. In both countries, initial r in words of foreign origin other than Chinese is pronounced.


 * "labour" （勞動）– North Korea: rodong (로동), South Korea: nodong (노동)
 * "history" （歷史）– North Korea: ryŏksa (력사), South Korea: yeoksa (역사)
 * "female" （女子）– North Korea: nyŏja (녀자), South Korea: yeoja (여자)

Vowel assimilation
The vowel which most affects consonants is which, along with its semivowel homologue, palatalizes  and  to alveolo-palatal  and  for most speakers (but see differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). As noted above, initial is silent in this palatalizing environment, at least in South Korea. Similarly, an underlying or  at the end of a morpheme becomes a phonemically palatalized affricate  when followed by a word or suffix beginning with  or  (that is, it becomes indistinguishable from an underlying ), though this does not happen within a word root such as   "where?".

is more affected by vowels, often becoming an affricate when followed by either or :,. The most variable consonant is, which becomes a palatal before  or , a velar  before , and a bilabial  before ,  and.

In many morphological processes, a vowel before another vowel may become the semivowel. Likewise, and  before another vowel may reduce to. In some dialects and speech registers, the semivowel assimilates into a following  or  to produce the front rounded vowels  and.

Consonant assimilation
As noted above, tenuis stops and are voiced after the voiced consonants, and the resulting voiced  tends to be elided. Tenuis stops become fortis after obstruents (which, as noted above, are reduced to ); that is, is pronounced. Fortis and nasal stops are unaffected by either environment, though assimilates to  after an. After, tenuis stops become aspirated, becomes fortis, and  is unaffected. is highly affected: it becomes after all consonants but  (which assimilates to the  instead) or another. For example, underlying is pronounced.

These are all progressive assimilation. Korean also has regressive (anticipatory) assimilation: a consonant tends to assimilate in manner but not in place of articulation: Obstruents become nasal stops before nasal stops (which, as just noted, includes underlying ), but do not change their position in the mouth. Velar stops (that is, all consonants pronounced in final position) become ; coronals  become, and labials  become. For example, is pronounced  (phonetically ).

Before the fricatives, coronal obstruents assimilate to a fricative, resulting in a geminate. That is, is pronounced. A final assimilates in both place and manner, so that  is pronounced as a geminate (and, as noted above, aspirated if C is a stop). The two coronal sonorants, and, in whichever order, assimilate to , so that both  and  are pronounced.

There are lexical exceptions to these generalizations. For example, voiced consonants occasionally cause a following consonant to become fortis rather than voiced; this is especially common with and  as  and, but is also occasionally seen with other sequences, such as  ,   and.


 * 1) Velar obstruents found in final position: ᆨ g, ᄁ kk, ᆿ k
 * 2) Final coronal obstruents: ᆮ d, ᇀ t, ᆺ s, ᆻ ss, ᆽ j, ᆾ ch
 * 3) Final labial obstruents: ᆸ b, ᇁ p

The resulting geminate obstruents, such as, , , and (that is, , , , and ), tend to reduce  in rapid conversation. Heterorganic obstruent sequences such as and  may, less frequently, assimilate to geminates  and also reduce.

These sequences assimilate with following vowels the way single consonants do, so that for example and  palatalize to  (that is, ) before  and ;  and  affricate to  and  before ;, , and  palatalize to  and  across morpheme boundaries, etc.

Hangul orthography does not generally reflect these assimilatory processes, but rather maintains the underlying morphology in most cases.

Phonotactics
Korean syllable structure is maximally /CGVC/, where G is a glide or. Any consonant but may occur initially, whereas only  may occur finally. Sequences of two consonants may occur between vowels, as outlined above. However, morphemes may also end in CC clusters, which are only both expressed when followed by a vowel. When the morpheme is not suffixed, one of the consonants is not expressed; if there is a, which cannot appear in final position, it will be that; otherwise it will be a coronal consonant, and if the sequence is two coronals, then the voiceless one will drop, and  or  will remain. That is, no sequence reduces to in final position.


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!Sequence !ㄳ gs !ㄺ lg !ㄵ nj !ㄶ nh !ㄽ ls !ㄾ lt !ㅀ lh !ㅄ bs !ㄼ lb !ㄿ lp !ㄻ lm !Medial allophone !Final allophone
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When such a sequence is followed by a consonant, the same reduction takes place, but a trace of the lost consonant may remain in its effect on the following consonant. These effects are the same as in a sequence between vowels: an elided obstruent will leave the third consonant fortis, if it's a stop, and an elided will leave it aspirated. Most conceivable combinations do not actually occur; a few examples are: =,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ; also  = , as  has no effect on a following , and  = , with the  dropping out. When the second and third consonants are homorganic obstruents, they merge, becoming fortis or aspirate, and—depending on the word, and a preceding might not elide:  is.

An elided has no effect:  =,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,  = ,   =.

Among vowels, the sequences do not occur, and it is not possible to write them using standard hangul. The semivowel only occurs in the diphthong. There are no offglides in Korean; historical have become modern.

Vowel harmony
Traditionally, the Korean language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Korean, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes (such as postpositions) change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. It is not as prevalent in modern usage, although it remains strong in onomatopoeia, adjectives and adverbs, interjections, and conjugation. There are also other traces of vowel harmony in Korean.

There are three classes of vowels in Korean: positive, negative, and neutral. The vowel ㅡ (eu) is considered partially a neutral and negative vowel. The vowel classes loosely follow the negative and positive vowels; they also follow orthography. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding diminutive and negative vowels sounding crude.

Some examples:


 * Onomatopoeia:
 * 퐁당퐁당 (pongdangpongdang) and 풍덩풍덩 (pungdeongpungdeong), light and heavy water splashing
 * Emphasised adjectives:
 * 노랗다 (norata) means plain yellow, while its negative, 누렇다 (nureota) means very yellow
 * 파랗다 (parata) means plain blue, while its negative, 퍼렇다 (peoreota) means deep blue
 * Particles at the end of verbs:
 * 잡다 (japda) (to catch) → 잡았다 (jabatda) (caught)
 * 접다 (jeopda) (to fold) → 접었다 (jeobeotda) (folded)
 * Interjections:
 * 아이고 (aigo) and 어이구 (eoigu) expressing surprise, discomfort or sympathy
 * 아하 (aha) and 어허 (eoheo) expressing sudden realization and mild objection, respectively

Pitch accent
Several dialects outside Seoul retain the Middle Korean pitch accent system. In the dialect of Northern Gyeongsang, in southeastern South Korea, any syllable may have pitch accent in the form of a high tone, as may the two initial syllables. For example, in trisyllabic words, there are four possible tone patterns:
 * 메누리 'daughter-in-law'
 * 어무이 'mother'
 * 원어민 'native speaker'
 * 오래비 'elder brother'

Notes and references
Explanatory notes

Citations