제주 방언의 모음 조화 연구

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to look at from a diachronic perspective the change process of vowel harmony which, the Cheju dialect experienced. Vowel harmony is taken as a type of progressive assimilation, in which the first vowel in a sequence constitutes the conditioning factor for subsequent vowels. However, vowels in the adjacent syllables either morpheme-internally or across morpheme boundary in the current Cheju dialect cannot be bound by a single feature. Consequently it is necessary to look at vowel harmony in the Cheju dialect diachronically. We distinguished, various vowel sequences morpheme-internally to look at morpheme-internal vowel harmony in the Cheju dialect. Vowels in .the Cheju dialect are basically divided into two groups: /a, ◎, o/∧ or /, ◎, u/. A morpheme chooses vowels in the same group. /i/ is an opaque neutral vowel. It can be followed by either /a/-group vowels or /∧/-group vowels. Exceptions to this distinction, in which vowels from the two groups are mixed in a morpheme, are explained as a result of either vowel change (a vowel which belonged to one group changed to the other group) or inclusion of morpheme boundary. Vowel harmony across morpheme boundary can be divided into derivational and inflectional. Though derivational suffixes generally do not follow vowel harmony rules, some of them (mostly beginning with vowels) do. There are derivational suffixes whose vowel in the first syllable is different from that of the Central district dialect. It is assumed that originally they might have have begun with /a/-group vowels. Vowel harmony of the inflectional suffixes is summarized as follows: (1) The p-irregular verbs take /a/-group suffixes except when they originate from an /∧/ monophthong stem, in which case they take /◎/group suffixes. (2) /a/-group suffixes are taken when the stem-final vowel is one of /a, o, wa, o, jo/, /n/-group suffixes when the stemfinal vowel is one of /e, n, e, we, we, wi/. (3) /a/-group suffixes are taken when the stem-final vowel is /u/ is either the result of o>w>u change or in the non-initial open syllable. /n/group suffixes are taken when the stem is either mono-syllabic with /u/ or it has /u/ in the non-initial closed syllable. (4) /a/-group suffixes are taken when the stem-final /◎/ resulted from ◎>◎ change. Verbs with stem-final /◎/ takes /a/-group suffixes, if /◎/ came from ◎>◎ change. Otherwise, they take /◎/ group suffixes. (5) Stem-final /i/ verbs take /a/-group suffixes when /i/ is in the non-initial closed syllable which is preceded by an original /a/-group vowel. Otherwise, they take /◎/-group suffixes. It is also observed that phonemes sharing morpheme boundary occasionally experienced changes. They can be explained as follows in terms of vowel harmony: they are either assimilated to adjacent vowels or dissiinilized.