This paper aims to describe and explain the realization and pattern of high-vowelization. In this paper, high-vowelization can be defined that three mid vowels ‘o(:)’, ‘e(:)’ and ‘?(:)’ rise high vowels ‘u(:)’, ‘i(:)’ and ‘?(:)’.
Criteria which can explain high-vowelization are the positions of mid vowel in word, length of vowel and type of morpheme. According to these criteria, high-vowelization is classified like below.
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According to the period, cause, region and realization of high-vowelization, twelve types of high-vowelization in above can be subcategorized into five types like below.
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In chapter 2, this paper explains type 1, high-vowelization at long vowel. According to many acoustic phonetics studies, long vowels tend to rise because long vowels have tensity. Therefore mid vowels in Korean, ‘o:’, ‘e:’ and ‘?:’ tend to be realized into high vowels, ‘u:’, ‘i:’ and ‘?:’. Length of vowel is the reason of high-vowelization of long vowels.
In chapter 3, four types of high-vowelization except type 1 are explained. There are some differences between lexical morpheme and grammatical morpheme on high-vowelization of short vowels. As a result, high-vowelization of grammatical morpheme can be classified into type 2.
Due to difference of type of risen vowels, there are some differences in the realization of high-vowelization of lexical morpheme. High-vowelization of ‘o’ and ‘?’ is restricted at the word initial position but realize at non-word initial position while high-vowelization of ‘e’ can be realized at any position of word.
High-vowelization of ‘e’ occurs in the southern dialect but it is not realized well in the central dialect. Therefore high-vowelization of short vowel ‘e’ is considered as the phenomena of the southern dialect. High-vowelization of ‘o’ and ‘?’ at the non-word initial and high-vowelization of ‘e’ occurs in the southern dialect are different phenomena.
In chapter 4, I summarized the discussion and points out some remaining problems.
