1.5 Tensification and Aspiration in Context — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read aloud any word in which a plain consonant follows a stop, because you know it comes out tense. Read aloud any word in which ㅎ and a plain consonant stand next to each other, because you know they merge into one aspirated consonant. Write the sound of a word yourself, in the square brackets this course uses, rather than only recognising it. Say which of the two changes is at work in a word you have not seen before, and why the spelling does not show it. Prerequisites : 1.4, whose three rules you need, because the reduction to the seven closing sounds and the order in which rules apply work here in exactly the same way. You also need the three-way contrast of 1.1 Sounds , since the output of both rules in this lesson is a consonant from the other two series. These are the two most frequent sound changes in Korean, and the two that the writing hides most completely. The word for school is written with the plain letter at the soft palate and is never said with it. Nothing in the spelling hints at the change, no dictionary entry you will meet in this phase writes it out, and Korean speakers are surprised to be told it happens at all. That is the situation you have to work in: the rules are exceptionless, so you can apply them yourself, but nobody will apply them for you. The rule Two rules, one for each direction of change. The first makes a plain consonant tense. The second makes a plain consonant aspirated. Both are driven by a neighbour, and in both the two consonants end up as fewer sounds than the spelling has letters. A plain consonant after a stop comes out tense When a block closes on one of the three stop sounds and the next block begins with one of the five plain consonants, that plain consonant is said as its tense partner. The stop itself is not released; you hold it, and the tightness of the hold is what produces the tense consonant after it. Plain Comes out as Example ㄱ ㄲ 학교 is [ 학꾜 ] ㄷ ㄸ 식당 is [ 식땅 ] ㅂ ㅃ 학비 is [ 학삐 ] ㅅ ㅆ 학생 is [ 학쌩 ] ㅈ ㅉ 잡지 is [ 잡찌 ] The condition is about the closing sound again, not the written letter. A block written with ㅅ , ㅈ , ㅊ or ㅌ at the bottom closes on the sound of ㄷ and triggers the rule just as a written ㄷ would. So 늦다 is [ 늗따 ]: the bottom letter reduces to a stop at the teeth ridge, and the following plain letter tightens. English speakers produce this change already and do not know it. Say back gate at speed and listen to the g. There is no puff of air on it, because your mouth is still closed from the k in front of it, and what comes out is close to the Korean tense consonant. The difference is that in English the effect is a mechanical by-product with no consequence, whereas in Korean it lands on a contrast the language uses to tell words apart, so the output has to be a real tense consonant and not a slack one. Three further settings produce a tense consonant, and it is worth knowing them by name so that you are not puzzled later. First, the stem of a verb or an adjective ending in ㄴ or ㅁ tenses the ending after it, so 신다 is [ 신따 ] and 감다 is [ 감따 ], although a noun ending in the same nasals does not do this. Second, in Sino-Korean words a block closing on ㄹ tenses a following ㄷ , ㅅ or ㅈ , so 발달 is [ 발딸 ] and 실수 is [ 실쑤 ]. Third, the future form of the verb, which you will meet in the Grammar volume, tenses whatever follows it. Treat the rule of this section as the main one and these as its neighbours. ㅎ and a plain consonant merge into an aspirated one The second rule is a merger rather than a change. When ㅎ stands next to one of the four plain consonants ㄱ , ㄷ , ㅂ or ㅈ , the two become a single consonant: the aspirated partner of the plain one. Two letters, one sound. It works in both orders, which is what makes it easy: you do not have to remember which of the two comes first. The pair The single sound Example ㅎ and ㄱ ㅋ 축하 is [ 추카 ] ㅎ and ㄷ ㅌ 좋다 is [ 조타 ] ㅎ and ㅂ ㅍ 급히 is [ 그피 ] ㅎ and ㅈ ㅊ 좋지 is [ 조치 ] So the word for congratulation, 축하 , has the letter for the soft palate closing the first block and ㅎ opening the second, and the two arrive as one aspirated consonant in the middle: [ 추카 ]. The word for a department store, 백화점 , does the same and gives [ 배콰점 ]. Entering a school, 입학 , has the stop at the lips and gives [ 이팍 ]. In the other order, with ㅎ at the bottom of the first block, the word for being good gives [ 조타 ] and the little word that means roughly "in what way" gives [ 어떠케 ]. Two extra cases belong with this rule. A bottom cluster containing ㅎ behaves as though the ㅎ were alone, so 많다 is [ 만타 ] and 싫다 is [ 실타 ]: the other letter of the cluster stays and closes the block, and the ㅎ merges forward. And ㅎ followed by ㅅ gives not an aspirated sound but a tense one, since the hiss has no aspirated partner, so 좋습니다 is [ 조씀니다 ], where you can also see yesterday's nasalisation at work in the ending. Why is there no third rule to learn here? Because a merger is not reversible. Once you know that two letters gave one aspirated sound, you also know that hearing an aspirated sound tells you nothing about how many letters produced it. This is the first place in the course where the direction from spelling to sound is easy and the direction from sound to spelling is not, and it is worth pausing on: from now on, dictating what you hear is a harder skill than reading what you see. Writing the sound yourself You have been reading square brackets since lesson 1.3. Now write them. The convention is simple, and using it is the most efficient way to make these rules stick, because it forces you to commit to an answer before you check. Write the sound in ordinary blocks, as though it were a word. Where a rule has produced a tense consonant, write the doubled letter. Where a rule has produced an aspirated one, write the letter with the extra stroke, and write only one letter where two have merged, so that the number of letters in your brackets is the number of sounds you say. Where liaison has moved a consonant, write i