Earticle

Kim, Ki-tae. 2014. Macrolinguistically Specified References to Oriental Medications in Korean Oriental Medical Discourse: Rationale and Forms. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 39-2, 251-273. The present study explores five types of macrolinguistically specified references to Oriental medications within the discourse of Korean Oriental Medicine and the rationale behind them. They include unmarked, yet contextually unambiguous references to: ● medicinal materials and ingredients (e.g., sahyang ‘moschus,’ nokyong ‘cornu cervi pantotrichum,' nokkak ‘cornu cervi,’ etc.) ● the dosage forms of Oriental medications (e.g., thangyak ‘decocted liquefied extract,' hwanyak 'pill, tablet, pellet' and set prescriptions such as kongcintan and chengwuithang) ● the medicinal units of measure such as chep and cey ● the decoction types such as chothang ‘first decoction,' and caythang ’second decoction' ● poyak 'tonic.' They are not overtly specified as Oriental medications, yet almost invariably refer to Oriental ones without any Oriental markings no matter whether they emerge in the discourse of Korean Oriental Medicine or that of Western biomedicine. In other words, they are otherwise unmarked, but macrolinguistically disambiguated as Oriental even in an apparent absence of biomedical voices. (Keimyung University)

An-Nah Moon. 2014. Palatalization in Old English: An OT-CC Account. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 39-2, 275-300. The main goal of this study is to analyze palatalization in Old English (OE) within the framework of Optimality Theory with candidate chains (OT-CC) (McCarthy 2007ab). Palatalization in OE has often been dealt with in many analyses due to its phonetic, phonological and morphological importance in the grammar. The theoretical issues on this change can be related to two questions: Can we explain all of the relevant data? and can we explain why palatalization is present when it is not expected and why it is absent when it is expected? Compared with the previous analyses including rule-based analyses, the proposed analysis is shown to be more successful on explanatory ground as well as in empirical coverage. The proposed analysis can incorporate the apparent and true palatalization under the same hierarchy of the constraints. It is argued that OT-CC, developed to explain phonological opacity, has advantage over any other theoretical tools, in explaining the opaque cases produced by the interaction of palatalization and umlaut in OE. (Inha University)

Moon, Grace Ge-Soon. 2014. On the Passivizability of Benefactive Ditransitives. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 39-2, 301-320. English ditransitive constructions have received their fair share of attention in linguistic literature. However, a curious omission in the otherwise exhaustive coverage of the phenomenon has been the apparent asymmetry in passivizability between dative ditransitives (constructions that correspond to to-datives) and benefactive ditransitives (constructions that correspond to for-datives). In other words, while dative ditransitives seem to passivize freely, benefactive ditransitives are much more constrained in their capacity to passivize. The present investigation attempts to provide a cogent explanation for this asymmetry by building on the widely-acknowledged assumption that passivizability is a function of transitivity. Specifically, the study adopts Rice's (1987) notion of "transitive prototype” and argues that the passivizability of benefactive ditransitives is governed by an interplay between the semantics of the ditransitive construction and the various conceptual dimensions of transitivity. (Dongduk Women’s University)

Song, Jiyeon, Kim, Heesung & Kim, Kee-Ho. 2014. High Tone Spreading in Northern Kyungsang Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 39-2, 321-336. This paper describes high tone spreading (henceforth HTS) of nouns and predicates such as verbs and adjectives in Northern Kyungsang Korean (henceforth NKK) which is one of Korean dialects. NKK shows distinct tonal patterns such as double, initial, rising, penultimate, and final tones unlike Seoul Korean. NKK has preserved tone patterns of Middle Korean with Hamkyung Korean in North Korea. This paper has three goals. First, this paper analyzes the tonal patterns and high tone distribution of NKK. Second, this paper shows that HTS occurs in nouns and predicates such as verbs and adjectives and HTS is sensitive to vowel length of a syllable that spreads high tone. Third, this paper shows Optimality Theory analysis for HTS in NKK with Comparative Markedness Theory by McCarthy (2003). (Korea University)

Crafer, Adam & Jung, Chae Kwan. 2014. A Corpus Investigation of the Similarities and Differences between think about and think of. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 39-2, 337-354. One of the many benefits of using corpora is the ability to investigate the differences between similar words. In this study, the Collins and Birmingham University International Language Database (COBUILD) corpus was used to investigate the differences in meaning and usage between the words think about and think of. 200 occurrences of each of these words in the corpus were analyzed and any noted tendencies the words displayed were investigated within the corpus. The results of this investigation showed that both words exhibited similarities in their usage of specific tenses, synonyms and between the occurrences, with some differences regarding their interactions with clauses and collocates. However, there were significant differences in the majority of their patterns, adverb usage, noun forms, topics, aspect, semantic prosody and contextual usage. The corpus investigation revealed the words' subtle yet fundamental differences in that think about proved to be a deliberate, time-consuming, contemplative, considering and evaluative act of thought whereas think of proved to be an equating, conceptualizing, conceiving, considering and evaluative act of thought. (University of Birmingham & KICE)

Spirantization in Central Numic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives. Korean Journal of Linguistics. 39-2, 355-376. The present study reanalyzes so-called spirantization in three Numic languages, Panamint, Shoshoni, and Comanche. Different from most of previous research on this issue, it is proposed that partial spirantization in Comanche is in fact an innovator, while full spirantization in Panamint and Shoshoni is original (McLaughlin 1992). It is also shown that the change from /t/ to [ɾ], which all these three languages undergo, is part of spirantization, not tap formation, different from the analysis of Armagost & McLaughlin (1992, 1993). Within the framework of Aperture Theory (Steriade 1993a, 1993b, 1994), taps and fricatives are regarded as having an identical aperture representation, Arelease. Furthermore, this paper analyzes spirantization in Central Numic languages based on Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993); it is demonstrated that the re-ranking of the constraints can account for the differences toward spirantization among these languages.

Han, Jeong-Im & Kim, Joo-Yeon. 2014. Acquisition of Korean Stops by Native Speakers of Mandarin Chinese: A One-year Longitudinal Study. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 39-2, 377-403. This study examined the production of the Korean stops (lenis, fortis, and aspirated) by Chinese learners over a one-year period following their first exposure to Korean. The main goals of the study were to investigate the learning trajectory of adult learners of second-language (L2) segmental acquisition and to determine whether L2 learners could make use of the multiple acoustic cues associated with the L2 segments. In Experiment 1, the voice onset time (VOT) and vowel-onset fundamental frequency (onset F0) were measured for each type of stops in Korean produced by the Chinese learners. The results indicate that L2 phonetic learning progresses gradually instead of following a pattern characterized by rapid initial learning and a subsequent plateau within a few months. The Chinese learners also learned to control the VOT quite easily but not the onset F0; this result suggests that L2 learners have difficulty producing the multiple acoustic correlates for L2 phonetic contrasts. In Experiment 2, it was shown that the asymmetry in the development of controlling VOT and onset F0 had a direct impact on the intelligibility of Chinese learners’ utterances to native Korean speakers. (Konkuk University)