Study on hypercorrection of phonological change

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between phonological change in the Korean language and its hypercorrection. To this end, this study further clarified the idea of hypercorrection, conditions, scope, etc. which had been rather unclear so fareto explain the relationship between phonological change and hypercorrection. To test the idea, conditions, etc. the study extracted hypercorrection examples in the Korean central dialect and investigated in which pattern the hypercorrections appeared in the actual literature by setting it as its secondary purpose. To this end, examples were extracted and quantified centering on palatalization and labialization and their development patterns were discussed. As a result, the hypercorrections in Korean central dialect were limited to the phonological change delivered from regional dialects. In this study, hypercorrection was recognized when the phonological environments were identical between the phonological change input part and alternant output part. In addition to this, the study discussed the possibility of different hypercorrection patterns according to social prestige. In this type of transformation under social prestige, the study looked at regions, social classes and vocabulary types to investigate different realization of hypercorrections. The Korean central dialect, first of all, was regarded more prestigious than regional dialects. It was also found that the language reflecting the upper class, rather than the language reflecting the mid class; and Sino­Korean words, rather than the native words in terms of lexicon type; were more socially prestigious thus, showing different hypercorrection patterns. Lastly, it was discussed that hypercorrection immediately appeared from the moment of phonological change or its acceptance and hypercorrection also occurred during active phonological changes or near the completion stage.