Korean Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

The following are phonemic transcriptions of Korean consonants.

1. /p, t, tɕ, k, h/ are voiced between voiced sounds, voiceless elsewhere. Voiced may become inaudible or disappear in many cases.
2. /ŋ/ appears only between vowels and in the syllable coda.
3. The analysis of the /s/ as phonologically plain or aspirated has been a source of controversy in the literature. Phonetically, however, it is aspirated.
4. /s, s͈/ are palatalized before /i, j/.
5. /l/ is an alveolar flap between vowels or between a vowel and an /h/; and is or at the end of a word, before a consonant other than /h/, or next to another /l/. It is unstable at the beginning of a word, tending to become before most vowels, and silent before /i, j/, though it is not uncommonly in English loanwords.
6. /tɕ͈, tɕʰ, tɕ~dʑ/ may be pronounced /ts͈, tsʰ, ts~dz/ by some speakers, especially before back vowels.
7. /m, n/ are frequently denasalized at the beginning of a word, sometimes to the extent of being full plosives.

Example words for consonants:

The IPA symbol ⟨◌͈⟩ (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants /p͈/, /t͈/, /k͈/, /t͈ɕ/, /s͈/. Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.

Sometimes the tense consonants are indicated with the apostrophe-like symbol ⟨ʼ⟩ symbolising glottalization, as in Americanist phonetic notation. This should not be confused with official IPA, as IPA ⟨ʼ⟩ represents the ejective consonants, with their piston-like upward glottal movement and non-pulmonic air pressure, which the Korean tense consonants do not feature.

An alternative analysis proposes that the "tensed" series of sounds are (fundamentally) regular voiceless, unaspirated consonants; that the "laxed" sounds are voiced consonants which become devoiced initially; and that the primary distinguishing feature between word-initial "laxed" and "tensed" consonants is that initial laxed sounds cause the following vowel to assume a low-to-high pitch contour – a feature reportedly associated with voiced consonants in many Asian languages – whereas tensed (and also aspirated) consonants are associated with a uniformly high pitch.

The plain consonants are in fact lightly aspirated word-initially. Meanwhile, the aspirated consonants are strongly aspirated, more aspiration than English plosives (p, t and k). The sibilant /s/ has behavior of both the plain and aspirated plosives: It is aspirated, at least word-initially, and does not become voiced intervocalicly, like the aspirated plosives, but has relatively brief contact (much shorter than /s͈/), like the plain plosives.

The nasals tend to be denasalized word-initially. Often they are not actual plosives either, but sometimes a plosive release burst is audible: 그런데메밀 /kɯlʌnte memil/ → .