훈민정음 ‘ㅇ’의 초성·종성에 관한 연구

The phonetic value of ‘ㅇ’ is a concept related to the resonance created within the vocal cords or the gravitational center of the resonance and therefore, it is hard to define it just with the international phonetic alphabet. Just like as it is mentioned in the preface of the books 『Hong-mu-jeongun- yeok-hun(洪武正韻譯訓)』 and 『Dong-guk-jeong-un(東國正韻)』, King Sejong recognized phonemes not just as a flat dot but as a three dimensional value created by ‘nal’ (height) and ‘ssi’ (width). This is a completely different pepspective from what the current phonetic literature is describing. The Hunminjeongeum actually records sounds as ‘three-dimensional values’ which controls the ‘nal’ and ‘ssi’ and not just as a superficial two-dimensional value units. This is quite appropriate in explaining the gravitational shift of sounds whereby it is controlled in a unique three dimensional way and not in the two dimensional way of the international phonetic alphabet targeted for voices and phonemes considered in bulks. The ‘ㅇ’ of the Hunminjeongeum is not considered to be in the category of phonemes within the Korean language from a voice concept perspective. It would be hard to recognize sounds which are not contained within the phoneme category but during the time of the creation of the Hunminjeongeum, King Sejong actually inserted this within the category of the phonemes and created pronunciation sound indicators for Chinese characters (hanja) within the saseongchileum (四聲七音: Four tones and seven sounds) system.