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On the ojㆍuj>ɯj unrounding

Eunji Yeo 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Unrounding is a phenomenon that a rounded vowel becomes a non-rounded vowel losing its roundedness. This study is going to deal with the changes of ‘ㅚ>ㅢ’ and ‘ㅟ>ㅢ’ that took place in the 17-18th century. Unrounding of ‘ㅚ>ㅢ’ and ‘ㅟ>ㅢ’ mostly occurred in syllables with no anlaut during the 17-18th century. Up until now, unrounding has been explained mainly with the spread of becoming rounded vowels that took place in the 17th century or dissimilation attributed to the property of roundedness. This study, however, has found that unrounding of ‘ㅚ, ㅟ>ㅢ’ that occurred in the 17-18th century was not attributed to the phonetic environment of roundedness and this phenomenon did occur very widely and mostly in syllables with no phonological condition. At that time, ‘ㅚ’ and ‘ㅟ’ should have been falling diphthongs, but it is noticeable that the change is a phenomenon hard to be found in simple vowels, ‘ㅗ’ or ‘ㅜ’. Particularly with the fact that the simple vowel, ‘ㅗ’, became a non-rounded vowel, not as ‘ㅗ>ㅡ’ but as ‘ㅗ>ㅓ’ (ex. poʃən>pəsən), it is hard to determine unrounding in ‘ㅚ, ㅟ>ㅢ’ is a secondary characteristic of unrounding in ‘ㅗ, ㅜ>ㅡ’. In the period that unrounding occurred after the first-step change of ‘ㆍ>ㅡ’, because the non-anlaut position is a weak syllable, it seems that even if there was no distinct phonetic condition, such unrounding could be applied.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.