earticle

영어

This study aims to provide a plausible explanation for the Korean front vowel merger of the high-mid vowel /e/ and the low-mid vowel /ε/. This vowel merger was found mainly in the speech and writing patterns of the Kyungsang dialect but it has now spread into the more standard Seoul Korean. Increasingly, younger generations fail to distinguish between the two vowels, and its effect is visible in written forms as well. One of the main reasons for this merger is from their phonetic obscurity due to the lack of difference between F1 and F2. Another reason for the merger stems from the semantic and functional similarities. Most of the minimal pairs with the distinctive vowels are from the same grammatical category and have similar function. Moreover, in most cases, their pitch and intonation are also alike. These similarities accelerate the merger, and more and more words with the mid-front vowels become ambiguous.