경북 고령은 경북 성주군, 대구시 달성군과 경남 합천군과 인접해 있는 지역이다, 고령지역어는 경상방언권에 포함되는데, 방언구획 상 경상방언권 가운데 제1지구인 ‘-능교’형 지구에 속하고, 문법체계 상으로는 제1유형 지역, 어휘를 기준으로 해서는 남부지역에 속한다. 본 논문은 경상방언권 가운데 경북의 서남지역에 위치한 고령지역을 중심으로 이 지역어의 음운적인 특징을 밝히고자 한다. 본고의 기술을 위해 활용한 연구방법론은 구조 방언학(structual-dialectology)과 생성 방언학의 방법론이다. 먼저 구조 방언학의 방언 체계(diasystem) 수립 방법론을 이용하여 음운 체계를 구축해 보고, 음운 변동에 대해서는 생성 방언학의 방법론을 활용하여 음운론적 과정(phonological process)과 규칙 순위(rule ordering)를 기술하면서 음운론적인 특징을 제시한다.

Goryeong of Gyeongbuk is adjacent to Seongju-gun(Gyeongbuk) and Dalseong-gun(Daegu) and Hapcheon-gun(Gyeongnam). The Goryeong- gun dialect belongs to GyeongSang dialect area. It is the region using ‘- NeungGyo’ type which is the first region on GyeongSang dialect area in Korean dialect division. The grammar system of it is included in the first type of region, and the vocabulary type is included in the southern region. This paper will search out phonological characteristics of Goryeong- gun located in the Southern-West of Gyeongbuk which is in GyeongSang dialect area. The methodology that I utilized in this study is Structural dialectology and Generation dialectology. First of all, using diasystem of structural dialectology established, I tried to set up a phoneme system. I present phonological characteristics of this dialect describing the phonological changing processes and the rule ordering to utilize with the methodology of generation dialectology. I can sum up briefly the phonological characteristics in this area as follows. First, the phoneme system in this area consisted of the 19 consonant sound system, and the 6 vowel sound system, and had /s/ and /s‘/ discriminated. The rising ‘w’-diphthongs(on-glides) contains four―/w?/, /w?/, /wa/, /wi/ and the rising ‘y’-diphthongs contains five―/y?/, /y?/, /ya/, /yo/, /yu/. The falling ‘y’-diphthong(off-glides), most of it being pronounced /i/, ‘?y’ didn’t exist. At prosodeme system, the tone(high & low) and length(long & short) were discriminated. like the different region of Gyeongbuk. Second, the boundary(#-stop) of free morpheme or voiceless stop obstruent(labial-consonant) in front of consonant was experiencing neutralization phenomenon in this dialect. And then by the following environments, it experienced the glottalized or aspirated or consonant-assimilation, and the derived form was put out. If a vowel sound is connected, it is realized as a phoneme of underlying form. The aspirated phenomenon is pronounced extensively not only in the inside of the morpheme but also in declension, conjugation, compound formation of the morpheme boundary. In the declension or conjugation, glottalized phenomenon is pronounced universally when the last phoneme of stem is a labial-consonant. In the conjugation, it is pronounced when the last phoneme of stem is a nasal-consonant. The consonant cluster simplification phenomenon is similar to the other region of Gyeongbuk though it was arbitrary according to the substantive and verb words. Palatalization is performed very universally both in synchronic and in diachronic aspect. A substantive stem-last consonant is changed arbitrarily in case of declension after experiencing a neutralization phenomenon. Third, the vowel-nasalization phenomenon was realized when a vowel sound comes at the front of consonant with [+nasal] or the back. Especially, /n/ was realized if only a subsequent vowel sound is /i/. The ‘e → i’ rising vowel phenomenon suggesting that more vowel sounds existed at the former step of 6 vowel sound system of the southeast dialect, it was realized faithfully. Especially, it was applied faithfully also even though it wasn’t length. While the front high vowel phenomenon was performed actively, back vowel ‘?’ was changed into front vowel sound ‘i’ between inner morpheme and the boundary of morpheme and behind sibilant.