A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 32. Kunt Ernő emlékére. (1994)

TANULMÁNYOK - KI–MOON LEE: A koreai és az altáji nyelvek összehasonlító tanulmányozása (magyar és angol nyelven)

2. Comparative study of the phonological systems of Korean and Altaic has seen no significant progress since it was established by Ramsted t/ Aal to (1957). Poppe (1960) shows remarkable systematization in the comparison of the phonological systems of the Altaic languages, but includes nothing new as far as Korean is concerned. Although Tsintsius (1975) attempts a new reconstruction of the Proto-Altaic consonantal system taking into consideration the consonantal system of Korean, unfortunately it shows a lack of understanding of the historical phonology of Korean. The consonantal system of Modern Korean is characterized by the aspirated and reinforced (glottalized) series, but these were the results of changes in comparatively late periods. It seems to me that comparative phonology of Korean and Altaic is still in its initial stages. Comparative study of the Indo-European languages has very favorable conditions for establishing strict rules of sound correspondence. In the case of Korean and Altaic, however, the lack of ancient documents and the distance of the relationship may perhaps make it impossible to hope for the successful establishment of rules of correspondence as strict as those of Indo-European. It seems to me that the degree to which we are able to overcome this difficulty will be the main factor controlling the future of the comparative study of Korean and Altaic. 3. Research regarding the comparison of Altaic and Korean morphology began with Ramstedt (1928, 1939, etc.), and was comprehensively systematized in Ramstedt/Aalto (1952). Poppe's research appears in his review (1955) and various articles. In the treatment of case suffixes, for example, we can point out that Ramstedt's works contain more than a few errors. There are two sources for the errors. First, he had incorrect knowledge of Korean morphology. For instance, he took the accusative suffix of Korean to be -j,'i, and compared it to the Proto-Altaic -*i. This suffix in Middle Korean took the forms (1) -r (after nominals ending in a vowel), (2) A

r/ir (after nominals ending in a consonant), and (3) -r

A

r/rir (after nominals ending in a vowel). There is no doubt that (3) is the double form of (1) and (2), and r is the core of the suffix. R. A. Miller (1977) compares the character A§ (read -h

A

r/hir, which appears as an accusative suffix in Old Korean texts, with Altaic accusative suffix -*g, but he overlooks the fact that the h in the Korean example is in fact the final consonant of the preceding noun.

7 The other source, as pointed out in Poppe (1955), is Ramstedt's view that grammatical forms all originate from content words.

8 Thus he attempts to find a connection between Altaic locative suffix -*da or -*du and Korean tai (place), and also between Tungus accusative suffix wa/wo and Korean po-a (a converbial form of po- 'to see'). These connections are not very convincing. Middle Korean t

A

y is the locative form of t

A

(labelled by Korean grammarians as a 'dependent' or 'formal' noun). I believe that Ramstedt's greatest contribution was the comparison of verbal noun endings. He made clear the important role of verbal nouns in the grammar of the Altaic languages and Korean, and demonstrated that there is an excellent correspondence among the verbal noun endings -*r, -*m and -*n. The credibility of 7 There were approximately 80 nominals ending in -h in Middle Korean. It is probable that there were even more in earlier times. 8 According to Aalto (1975), Ramstedt while in university was strongly influenced by the theory that suffixes generally originate from content words, which was very popular at the time. 99