Korean is generally classified to have a vowel length distinction (eg. Maddieson 1984: Patterns of Sounds). However, recent experimental researches such as Magen & Blumstein (1993) have shown that the vowel length distinction is belong lost in Modern Korean. Although this seems to be true for Seoul dialect, Chonnam dialect of Korean is thought to maintain the lexical vowel length distinction (Jun 1994).

In this project, I investigate whether [+long] is still a distinctive phonological feature in Chonnam. A pilot study of recording minimal pairs including each short and long vowel pair and measuring their vowel length indicated that there is a vowel length distinction between the member of the minimal pairs. So it seems that at least at the surface level, there is a vowel length difference between minimal pairs. footnote

However, since high pitch and long duration usually go together, it is not clear which one should be specified at the underlying level. Several of the examples that showed dubious vowel length difference between the minimal pairs suggest that it may be Tone rather than Length that is underlyingly specified. However, this should be further investigated to get a firm ground for argument.

The following are spectrogram and pitch track for the minimal pair 'sicang (hunger)' and `siicang (market)' in Chonnam.

Click on the spectrogram to hear the actual speech sound.

Picture 1: Wideband spectrogram and F0 contour for 'sicang-hata (be hungry)' and 'siicang-kata (go to market)'

footnote: There were also cases, though not many, where the distinction seems to be due soley to the pitch.