<html>
<head>
<style>
.hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;
padding:0px
}
body.hmmessage
{
FONT-SIZE: 10pt;
FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma
}
</style>
</head>
<body class='hmmessage'>
<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif"><FONT face=Verdana>Dear KS List members:</FONT></SPAN><BR>
<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif"><FONT face=Verdana></FONT></SPAN> <BR>
<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif"><FONT face=Verdana>Thank you to Dr. King and one off-list correspondent for your replies. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif"><FONT face=Verdana>The gentleman off-list also quotes from Samuel E. Martin's _Reference Grammar of Korean_ (pp 523-524):</FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif"><BR>
<BR></SPAN><FONT face=Verdana><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif">"Dictionaries list the abbreviation as </SPAN></FONT><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'"><FONT face=Verdana><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif">hāy and that is the prescribed pronunciation of the 1988 rules of the Ministry of Education. Since the form usually appears in a position where the distinction of vowel length is not maintained, here we write it as short in all positions." </SPAN><BR style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,serif"></FONT><BR></SPAN>
Between that and Dr. King's handy rule of thumb, I would extrapolate that 되다 would theoretically behave in an analogous manner, although it has been pointed out that the long vowel may be disappearing from 돼, if not from 해.<BR>
<BR>
So this brings up another question...when I started learning Korean, I was oblivious to the distinction between long and short vowels, and do not recall seeing any mention of the distinction in any of the many beginners' texts I used. (Perhaps not taking a proper course was the problem!). Presumably the matter is discussed at the intermediate level, at least? Is it not considered essential for beginning Korean learners to know? Or is non-coverage of long vowels an artifact of that pedagogical spectre, "Korean for foreigners"?<BR>
<BR>
Or as my correspondent suggested, could the distinction be vanishing in modern Korean? Yet, practical experience indicates that one of the reasons people misunderstand me when I speak Korean is because I inadvertently shorten long vowels, or for that matter, deintensify unmarked intensified consonants (e.g., 한자 /hanqca/, 결정 /kyelqceng/)--both features that are not shown in Korean writing and also seem to get omitted in beginning-level language texts, but which lead to mispronunciation if neglected.<BR>
<BR>
Yours,<BR>
Stefan Ewing<BR>
<BR>
--Forwarded Message Attachment--<BR>From: jrpking@interchange.ubc.ca<BR>To: koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws<BR>Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:15:00 -0700<BR>Subject: Re: [KS] Long vs short vowels in verb and adjective conjugations<BR><BR><BR><PRE>Hi Stefan: <BR> <BR>You sort of answer your own question, but the easiest way to do it this: <BR> <BR>vowel length is only distinctive in standard Korean in first syllables. <BR> <BR>So once a form that otherwise has a long vowel in first-syllable position gets pushed out of that first-syllable slot, bye-bye vowel length. <BR> <BR>Cheers,<BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>--<BR>Ross King<BR>Professor of Korean, University of British Columbia<BR>and <BR>Dean, Korean Language Village, Concordia Language Villages<BR> <BR> <BR> <BR></PRE><br /><hr />Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger <a href='http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline' target='_new'>Get it now! </a></body>
</html>