While sitting in our infinitely fun Phonetics & Phonology class, we briefly looked at both Scottish English and Korean (what was being demonstrated was whether [ɾ] and [l] for both languages were the same or different phonemes).
Growing up speaking English, I always knew that [ɾ] and [l] are different phonemes in English. Having taken Korean for two and a half years, one of the difficulties for me was that the letter ㄹ is realized as both [ɾ] and [l]. So whenever a word had ㄹ, I was never completely certain whether it would be [ɾ] or [l]. I knew whether it was [ɾ] and [l] if I had learned the word, but that was from memory and not deduction. I never had a method for figuring this out until yesterday! (Much thanks to our lecturer for making me see this)
For example purposes, I'll use two words: 빠르다 - pʰɑɾədɑ (v. to go fast) and 말 - mɑl (n. word)
See? Already, the ㄹ is realized as both [ɾ] and [l]. Now look at this:
- When the verb 빠르다 [pʰɑɾədɑ] becomes an adverb, it is 빨리 [pʰɑɫɪ]
- When 말 [mɑl] is given the object marker, it is 말을 [mɑɾəl]
Note:
빠르다 [pʰɑɾədɑ] → 빨리 [pʰɑɫɪ] : To go fast → quickly
빠르다 [pʰɑɾədɑ] → 빨리 [pʰɑɫɪ] : To go fast → quickly
말 [mɑl] → 말을 [mɑɾəl] : Word → word (obj)
Now for the fun part: Why?
While learning Korean, we were always reminded that ㄹ is an odd consonant that students always had to be careful with it in both speaking and writing.
So what we did in class yesterday was first divide the word into syllables (I will follow how the Korean words are divided into syllables):
빠·르·다
pʰɑ·ɾə·dɑ
빨·리
pʰɑɫ·ɫɪ
말
mɑl
말·을
mɑ·ɾəl
Next was to determine the distrubution/placing of [ɾ] and [l] in the syllables and we end up with:
- [ɾ] is found in the onset of the syllable
- [l] is found in the coda of the syllable
- HOWEVER, when two ㄹ occur consecutively within a word, it is realized as [ɫ] both in the onset and coda of the syllables in which the ㄹ occurs
I'm sure this is being done somewhere. I just think it should be done everywhere.
And because I have a pathological love for Scottish (and Irish) accents:
It's not even relevant to what I mentioned in the beginning about Scottish English, but I really could not get this song out of my head since I typed "Scottish" out.
Linerrrr :p
ReplyDeleteI'm commenting because of the Proclaimers! Haven't heard that song for ages. Haha. Okay bye!
Hahaha, me neither! Ok, bye~
DeleteIt's good to see your comments on phonetics and phonology in this blog; I hope that the reflection it involves might be helpful for you.
ReplyDeleteJust one thing: you are using the symbol [ɾ] for /r/. Is this intended? This symbol represents a tap. Is the Korean sound tapped? The difference between [r] (a trill) and [ɾ] (a tap) is a bit hard to see; but it is meaningful in phonetics.
Yes, Korean uses the tap and as far as I've learned, I have not encountered any word that uses the trill (though there may be?)
Delete