어말 음절구조의 특성과 한국어 교육적 접근

The primary purpose of this paper is to consider the peculiar properties of the syllable structure in the word-final position within the theory of Government Phonology, and to seek their implications for the Korean language education for foreigners. Roughly speaking, there are four different types of syllable structure in the final position, which constitute a hierarchy. Languages like Japanese, Brazilian and Portuguese must end in a vowel, while languages like Korean, English and French are allowed to end in a consonant(s). However, detailed aspects are all different from each other in terms of the number of appearing consonants and possible sequences. Korean is allowed to end in only one consonant which means that no words can end in a consonant cluster. On the other hand, French and English may end in a consonant cluster. But, in English, obstruent-liquid sequences like -tr, -vr, -pr are not allowed unlike in French. The difference between the syllable structures of the learner`s mother tongue and the target language triggers an inevitable interference in foreign language learning. Therefore, language teachers should understand the properties of languages cross-linguistically, including syllable structure to improve educational efficiency.