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This paper seeks to assess the role of functional factors in the development of the /e ∼ε/ unconditioned merger that has taken place in Seoul Korean. We explore several alternative measures of functional load, one measure of phonetic distance evaluated on a perceptual scale, and a simple integrative measure, which combines functional load and phonetic distance into a single ‘contrastivity index.’ Our results show that, while both functional load and perceptual distance hint at the fact that /e ∼ε/ was a weak contrast, this effect is clearest when these two factors are integrated together, especially when functional load is measured as phone-level entropy loss. The proposed metric thus offers a fruitful way of modeling the interaction between functional factors in the development of mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the table of contents of the January 2002 issue of the "Journal of East Asian Linguistics".

Most previous studies related to loanword adaptation have centered on segmental mappings between source and loanword sounds in morphologically simplex words (LaCharité and Paradis, Ling Inq 36:223-258, ; Kang, Phonology 20:1-56, ). However, few have considered the adaptation of complex words, specifically words made of multiple free morphemes. Examining the adaptation of complex English words into Korean, the present study makes four claims. First, it proposes that each component of a complex word is a unit for loanword adaptation in calculating sound mappings. Second, it suggests that each component word is a stem, whereas a loanword as a whole is categorized as a nominal word in Korean. Third, apparent single-unit adaptation is possible only when the first component allows variable final vowel epenthesis at the end of the first component word; this is analyzed in terms of split-base effects. Fourth, the allophonic realization of phonemes plays a crucial role in loanword adaptation. These claims are empirically supported by loanwords found via the National Academy of Korean Language (NAKL ) and Google searching (March-June 2011). Furthermore, this study provides an explicit formalization of the analysis of complex loanwords within Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, Opimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar, ). The present study contributes to the literature of loanword phonology by shedding light on several issues. First, the study proposes a model for the adaptation of complex loanwords wherein both morphological structure and the phonetic information of the source language play important roles. There has been intense debate about the effect of input information on loanword adaptation, broadly split between a phonological view (LaCharité and Paradis, Ling Inq 36:223-258, ) and a perceptual view (Silverman, Phonology 9:289-328, ; Steriade, in: Hume and Johnson (eds.) The role of speech perception in phonology, ; Peperkamp and Dupoux, Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, ). The adaptation of complex English words in Korean supports the perceptual approach, in that the allophone realized in a complex word determines the loanword sound. It also reveals that sound mappings in loanwords are determined by the morphological structure of source words. There has been a discussion about whether the morphosyntactic base is isomorphic to the phonological base (Steriade, Lexical conservatism and the notion base of affixation, ). Component-by-component analysis of the apparent single-unit adaptation provides support for the existence of a split-base effect as well as for the lexical conservatism proposed by Steriade (Lexical conservatism and the notion base of affixation, ). Finally, it makes a contribution to evaluation of the internal structure and morphological category of complex loanwords, which has been rarely considered in the literature on loanword phonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to elucidate the asymmetric distribution of stem-final coronal (SFC) obstruent codas in the nouns of Contemporary Korean (CK) by documenting their historical development from Middle Korean (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, MK). Examination of historical data suggests that there was an intermediate stage in Korean in which [s] was far and away the most prevalent phonetic value and thus triggered analogical extension to other SFCs through a stage of free variation between [s] and [t]. Subsequent developments involving the completion of the occlusivization of [s] obscure this state of affairs. Two other factors which resulted in the biased distribution of SFCs in CK are also pointed out: (1) the simplification of SFCs' oppositions in polysyllabic words based on their near-complementary distribution and (2) the type-frequency of MK SFCs, which takes into account compound words as well as simplex (= non-compound) words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been observed in the literature that stem-final coronal obstruents of nouns in Korean are generally in variation with [s] in the prevocalic position: for example, /pathh-ɨl/ [pathh-ɨl] ~ [pasɨl] ‘field, accusative’. In addition, nouns with final noncoronal stops have variants ending in lenis stops: for example, /iph-e/ [iph-e] ~ [ipe] ‘leaf, locative’. Recent survey and experimental studies reveal that a wide set of coronal obstruents [s, ch, th, c, t] may occur as variants. Moreover, there is an order of preference among them: in general, s >> ch, th >> c, t. This paper first shows that the observed relative preference among variants is matched by the distribution of lexical final obstruents in noun stems. Building on Albright’s Paradigm Learning Model, I provide a unified account for the occurrence of most variants and their relative preference by proposing stochastic rules deriving the paradigmatically related forms of noun stems. In addition, a wug-test is carried out to investigate the productivity of such rules. Results suggest that these rules are productive, providing the evidence for their cognitive presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]