漢字語의 한글 表記에 나타나는 頭音法則과 그 例外 條項에 대한 考察

Abstract

In <The Korean Orthography> there are several stipulations about spelling that are called word initial l-sound constraints. These constraints especially apply to sino-Korean words. Because there were no inherent Korean words beginning with l-sound originally, the initial l-sound of sino-Korean words borrowed from Chinese were changed to an n-sound or deleted. We can see many sino-Korean words that have gone through the process of this type of change or deletion. <The Korean Orthography> includes many specific descriptions of these cases and particularly many exceptional stipulations of these constraints. In this paper I examine 5 exceptional stipulations specifically and attempt to judge their validity. The 5 exceptional stipulations are grouped into two main categories. The first includes 2 cases where the constraint of the word initial location is not adapted; the other is 3 cases that the constraint is adapted in the non-word initial location. Binding nouns, surnames and names belong to the former, but complex words, ‘ryeol, ryul' located after vowel or ‘n', and the same syllable repetition construction belong to the latter. But consistency is lacking between these sub-articles, and we can observe cases where the stipulations have been misapplied to certain individual words. In this paper, I point out these problems and conclude by proposing a more consistent and improved strategy of Korean spelling to these l-sound beginning sino- Korean words.