15世紀 國語의 四聲表記에 關한 硏究

Abstract

Based on the results that obtained through the examination of the 15th Century Korean tones, it can be found that even though the "Four Tones" of Classical Chinese differ slightly with Korean, the two languages has similar characteristics in gliding pitch of rising and falling tones. Each tone has independent feature, and consists of four registers, that is they have four contour system. Methods to mark the "Four Tones" differ each other. In Chinese, each small circle is used to mark the "tone", but in Korean, one or two dots are attached to the left side of Korean letter. Upon close examination, it shows that basic characteristics of "tones" are found in a "low-to-high" pitch, and registers in Korean belongs to the two units of "low" and "high". Through the examination of Korean-side documents in 15th Century, the high pitch does not occur in the second syllable of a three-syllable word. This tendency is applied to the case of auxiliaries that make "ㅇ, 으" into union vowels, and the two-syllable auxiliaries can be appeared freely without any relation with the preceding syllable. In the case of a declinable word stem, irregular pitch type in the last syllable are found, and shift occurs frequently. Furthermore, in the case of word ending, last syllable is belong to "high" tone.