Yong Heo. 2000. The Sound of `ㅇ` in Middle Korean Revisited. Studies in Modern Grammar 20, 1-22. In this paper I discuss the sound of `ㅇ` in Middle Korean. It has been assumed that this orthography is pronounced in two ways. One is zero when it appears in word-initial position, and the other is a consonant like [fi] when it appears in other positions such as `놀애(song)`. It has been taken for granted that/ㄹ/ in this word is realized as [l] rather than [r]. Since Korean liquid is realized as [r] between two vowels and is realized as [l] either before a consonant or at the end of a word, there is no way to interpret the sound as a consonant. In addition there is an apparent historical evidence that this was a consonant in an earlier period. However, I claim that this orthography represents an empty onset which has phonological position with no segmental content. We can see that some similar examples are found from the languages of Seri and French. We also see that the sound of `ㄹ` in the preceding syllable is realized as [l] since it is followed by a licensed empty nucleus which makes the preceding consonant unreleased.

• 허용 | Yong Heo