영국영어에서 <u>의 발음과 분포

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distribution of the pronunciations (mainly /ju, u, ʌ/) of orthographic <u> in British English. /ju, u, ʌ/ have incurred many complicated problems regarding the status of /j/, the underling form of these vowels, etc. Chomsky and Halle (1968) argue that the pronunciations of <u> are derived from Middle English lax /ʊ/; it becomes /ju/ when it occurs in an open syllable; it remains /ʊ/ when it is preceded by one of the nonnasal labials /p, b, f, v/ and followed by /l, ʃ, ʧ/; elsewhere, that is, in a closed syllable, it becomes /ʌ/. It is expected that the pronunciations of <u> and their contexts are reflected in the present-day pronunciations of <u>. To check this I analyzed the monomorphemic words in the CELEX lexical database; [ʌ] appears mostly in a closed syllable as expected, but it is hard to say that [ju] and [u] occur mostly in the expected contexts. It is also found that /jʊ/ occurs only in a word-medial unstressed open syllable and that the favorite onset of a /u/-syllable is /l, r/, the reason of which is to be studied in the future.