Insung Ko (University of Michigan). 2009. The merger of ey /e/ and ay /？/ of Seoul Korean. Language Information. Volume 10. 72-89.
This study investigates whether modern Korean has experienced vowel shift by merging two adjacent vowels in spontaneous speech production. Lee (1995) suggests that the two mid front vowels ey /e/ and ay /ε/ are merging in modern Korean, but that the merger is only partial in both production and perception. The current study empirically investigates the spontaneous speech of four native Seoul Korean speakers. Results show that these speakers produce the two vowels with complete overlap of the resonances that define vowel quality. In other words, these two vowels occupy exactly the same range in the vowel chart, providing evidence for a complete merger of /e/ and /ε/ in spontaneous speech. The findings of this study suggest a possible explanation for the current linguistic behaviors of Korean speakers who show confusion between the two vowels in writing.
Keywords: merger, mid-front vowels, acoustic analysis, spelling error