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Lee, Ponghyung. 2013. Quantification of the Impact of Borrowed Sounds and Neutralization on Korean Contrasts. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 38-3, 727-749. This paper examines the validity of the conventional phonological idea that sounds that serve a contrastive function are phonemes. Above all, every phoneme is not equal in terms of phonological contrasts as evidenced by defective distributions. For this purpose, quantitative analyses of Korean relying on phonological entropy (uncertainty) are conducted, and the following are considered: word-initial laryngeal feature variation such as [s]~[sʼ], [t]~[tʼ], [tʰ]~[t], and [tʼ]~[tʰ], an imported consonant [f], the promotion from allophonic to partial-phonemic status of [ʃ], the quasi-merger of [e] and [ɛ], and syllable-final neutralization of alveolar obstruent consonants from six to three. The findings of our investigation are as follows: First, loanwords are apt to exert significant impact on the pattern of contrasts in a native language. Second, it is mandatory to view that contrasts between sounds in a language are constantly in flux. (Daejeon University)