Korean final Cs

The first case is a rule of Korean that nasalizes stops before nasal consonants (a rule that we have seen operating within words in the preceding section). The first set of examples shows the word for ‘rice’ when said alone, or when it is followed by various words which begin with oral consonants and vowels. In these data, the last consonant of the word for ‘rice’ is pronounced as [p]. In the second set of examples, the word which follows ‘rice’ begins with a nasal, and in that case the final consonant of the word for ‘rice’ is pronounced as [m].

Compare those examples with the following examples with the word for ‘chestnut.’

In fact the (b) phrases above are actually ambiguous as to whether the word being pronounced means ‘chestnut’ or ‘rice.’

The last consonant of the word for ‘chestnut’ is always [m], so we would presume that the underlying form of that word is /pam/. Since the word for ‘rice’ varies between [pap] and [pam], and since we know that the underlying form cannot be /pam/ (this is the underlying form of ‘chestnut,’ and ‘chestnut’ cannot have the same underlying form as ‘rice’ since they do not behave the same), we conclude that the underlying form of the word for ‘rice’ is /pap/, and that a nasalization rule changes /p/ (in fact, all stops) to nasals before a nasal. Whether a word undergoes that rule depends on what follows the final consonant. One and the same word can be pronounced differently depending on the properties of the phrase in which it appears.