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Neutralization and anti-homophony in Korean1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2009

DANIEL SILVERMAN
DANIEL SILVERMAN*
Affiliation:
San José State University
*
Author's address: Department of Linguistics and Language Development, San José State University, One Washington Square, San José, CA 95192-0093, USA[email protected]
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Abstract

Neutralization in Korean involves a large number of oppositions, and affects a significant portion of the lexicon. Nonetheless, it induces remarkably little homophony. These highly divergent facts are argued herein to be related. The present findings suggest a reconsideration of the role that ‘functional load’ (Martinet 1952, Hockett 1967) plays in patterns of sound change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , July 2010 , pp. 453 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

[1]

For their help (which does not entail their endorsement of my conclusions), thanks to Adam Albright, Devin Casenhiser, Stuart Davis, Ik-Sang Eom, David Etienne-Bouchard, Andrew Garrett, Chris Golston, Bill Idsardi, Chiyuki Ito, Jongho Jun, Yoonjung Kang, Abby Kaplan, Bob Kennedy, Hahn Koo, Bruce Lyon, Öner Özçelik, Glyne Piggott, Richard Wiese, members of my SJSU Phonology 2 class S08, and two anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees. This paper is dedicated to the memory of my teacher, Peter Ladefoged.

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