Saturday, April 16, 2005, 08:38 GMT
"Korean, like Mandarin and Cantonese, has lost voiced consonants"
I assume you're talking about /t/ /d/ and /p/ (not inherently voiced consonants like /n/ and /m/), but Korean does at least experience voiced consontants intervocalically or after already voiced consonants (of course those are allophones, admittedly). For example, the /p/ in a word like "house" [tSip] is rendered differently according to where it's positioned:
"house" [tSip]
"to the house" /tSip e/ ---> [tSib e]
Similarly:
"Korea" /hankuk/ ---> [haNguk]
"(activity particle) Korea" /hankuk esO/ ---> [haNgug esO]
Also, any word that has /t/ d/ or /p/ naturally in an intervocalic position (like "hada" /hata/ ---> [hada]) receives voicing. So, while it isn't contrastive, Korean hasn't completely lost voicing in consonants, and in the area of loanwords which require voiced consonants, will often place consonants in intervocalic position when possible to achieve the desired voiced effect. For example, English "code" is rendered [k_hod1] in the Korean loanword, as compared to phonologically possible [k_hot], to ensure that the English /d/ is rendered voiced in all forms of the word, even tho in many sentences something like /k_hot/ would become [k_hod1] anyway (such as in "code" [spelled 'kodeu' in Romanized Korean] plus any following word starting with a vowel).
I assume you're talking about /t/ /d/ and /p/ (not inherently voiced consonants like /n/ and /m/), but Korean does at least experience voiced consontants intervocalically or after already voiced consonants (of course those are allophones, admittedly). For example, the /p/ in a word like "house" [tSip] is rendered differently according to where it's positioned:
"house" [tSip]
"to the house" /tSip e/ ---> [tSib e]
Similarly:
"Korea" /hankuk/ ---> [haNguk]
"(activity particle) Korea" /hankuk esO/ ---> [haNgug esO]
Also, any word that has /t/ d/ or /p/ naturally in an intervocalic position (like "hada" /hata/ ---> [hada]) receives voicing. So, while it isn't contrastive, Korean hasn't completely lost voicing in consonants, and in the area of loanwords which require voiced consonants, will often place consonants in intervocalic position when possible to achieve the desired voiced effect. For example, English "code" is rendered [k_hod1] in the Korean loanword, as compared to phonologically possible [k_hot], to ensure that the English /d/ is rendered voiced in all forms of the word, even tho in many sentences something like /k_hot/ would become [k_hod1] anyway (such as in "code" [spelled 'kodeu' in Romanized Korean] plus any following word starting with a vowel).