Re: Mutations in General

n Wednesday, October 23, 2002, at 03:33 , Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>:
>
>> Anyway, here are bunches of phonological processes, from _The Korean
>> Language_ by Iksop Lee & S. Robert Ramsey.  (After reading this, the
>> differences and rationales for McCune Reischauer vs. Yale romanization
>> finally became clear to me.)  Er...Cymri?  They're probably not all
>> technically mutations (most of them seem phonologically predictable),
>
> Indeed. Technically most of them should be called gradations (and maybe a
> few
> are lenitions, like the disappearance of [h]).
>
*nod*  I was confused about terminology when I offered to post "mutations.
"  I always thought of mutations in Korean as "those things that will
screw you up if you try to spell 'strictly' phonetically."  *grin*  (I
have to say, though, that section of the book cleared up a *lot* about
writing Korean for me.)

>> + Korean "tensified" stops.  If another language exists that makes use
>> of
>> them I haven't been able to find it...though if someone knows of one,
>
> Can you explain me how you pronounce the Korean "tensified" stops? (I
> mean, how
> you articulate them, and how they differ from normal or aspirated stops) I
Yeah, they're neither normal nor aspirated; Korean has bunches of minimal
triplets illustrating it, e.g. (from the book again):
tal [tal] "moon", thal [t_hal] "mask", ttal [t'al] "daughter"
pul [pi"l] "fire", phul [p_hi"l] "grass", ppul [p'i"l] "horn"
In other words, the things are pervasive.

Here's the explanation from the book (if I were there in person, I'd just
pronounce a bunch of examples for you):

"The Korean consonant system has an unusual distinction.  The lax
consonants (p, t, s, c, k) and the reinforced consonants (pp, tt, ss, cc,
kk) contrast by an articulatory feature not found in most other languages.
   The lax consonants are pronounced weakly, with minimal muscular activity.
   The reinforced consonants are pronounced with great muscular tension,
both at the point of articulation and throughout the vocal tract, and the
tensity continues into the vowel, giving it a throaty, or laryngeal,
quality.  This difference in the tensity of articulation is what
distinguishes the two series of consonants.  Both contrast with the third
series, the aspirated consonants [ph, th, ch, kh], which are charactized
by long aspiration, often heard as velar friction.

"In initial position all three series are unvoiced.  There is no voicing
contrast in Korean.  The lax, or "plain,"consonants are pronounced in
initial position with a slight puff of air and voicing delay of about 30
to 50 msec, while the aspirated consonants are pronounced with strong
aspiration lasting about 100 msec.  In most varieties of English,
voiceless consonants are pronounced with about 70-85 msec of voicing delay
and aspiration, about midway between the Korean values; as a result,
English speakers are often unable to hear the distinction between the lax
and aspirated consonants.  On the other hand, English speakers identify
the Korean reinforced consonants with the voiced consonants of their own
language, even though, in actuality, the reinforced consonants are
voiceless as well as unaspirated, with voice onset, occurring almost
simultaneously with the articulation of the consonant.  The rieinforced
consonants are similar to the voiceless consonants of French (p, t, k) or
the unaspirated consonants of Mandarin Chinese."

NOTE: When I see reinforced or "Tense" consonants transcribed via IPA the
notation I see is [p'] vs. the lax [p].  At least, this is in all the
sources I've found on Korean.  This book tends to stick to Yale unless it
needs to make a clarification (e.g. the chapter on dialects).

TRIVIUM: "Earth's/world's end" or [t'aNk'i"t] can be transcribed in
Reischauer as "Ttangggeut."  Gotta love the traffic jam in the middle.

> that because Maggel has a set of "tense" consonants, and if those two
> things
> are the same, that would be a neat coincidence, especially since the tense
> consonants already existed in the first incarnation of Maggel, which I
> invented
> when I was 16, way before I ever heard of Korean tensified stops.
>
*grin*  Given what the excerpt suggests about French consonants, it's
especially possible, I think.  Neat!

> I've seen that the common description of Korean "tensified" stops is that
> they
> are long consonants (geminates). Yet I remember that you argued a lot
> against
> this explanation, so this is probably not it. Then there is a big chance
> that
Yeah...there are a few geminates in Korean, and they're not it; tensified
consonants aren't held any longer.  That, and after hearing bunches of
Japanese geminates I'm *doubly* sure they're not geminates.  The
explanation excerpted above is probably the best one I've found, and it
matches with what I can tell is happening when I articulate the consonants
in question.

http://www.langintro.com/kintro/
This actually has sound samples (you may need to be using a standard
browser, unlike me...) if it helps any.

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

"640K ought to be enough for anybody"--Bill Gates, 1981

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