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1.
Introduction
It is often observed that the Cheju dialect (henceforth CK) is the most conservative variety of Korean and, therefore, the closest to Middle Korean (henceforth MK). In many ways this is true: for instance, only CK retains the reflex of the MK vowel arae a, resulting in a more complex vowel system than other varieties.1 In addition, a number of MK words are found in CK but not in Modern Standard Korean (henceforth MSK), e.g. MK
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puzep, CK pwusep 'charcoal burner' or MK kokoli, CK kokoli 'ear of grain'. This lexical variation is no doubt due to the long history of separation from the mainland. Furthermore, external influences on CK from sources such as Mongolian have affected various areas of the lexicon (Martin 1994, Lee and Ramsey 2000). Sohn (1999: 74) has this to say about the Cheju dialect:
The dialect spoken on the island of Ceycwu, off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, is of great linguistic value in that it has evolved independently without frequent contact with the mainland dialects. ... this dialect retains many interesting old forms.
In a later work, Sohn (2006: 277) goes on to say that "Cheju dialect is virtually the only dialect to be described as having a different inventory from the standard 19 consonants described for Kyonggi and other dialectsâ[euro]. Thus, CK constitutes an important and valuable source of information for the study of MK and its relationship to Modern Korean. It should be noted that much of what holds for CK also applies to other southern dialects of Korean, and I will consider CK be a typical representative of the Southern dialects of Korean.2
The grapheme, referred to as pansios in Korean, arises from earlier Old or Early Middle Korean /s/ between sonorants, including vowels, resulting in the voiced allophone [z]. It is active in the MK period and then disappears at the end of this period, leaving forms without any phonetic reflex of [z].
However, the reflex of often appears in modern Southern dialects of Korean as /s/. This variation has often been attributed to the Southern dialects never having undergone the earlier MK change of /s/ to [z]. These...