Jongho Jun
Linguistics, Seoul National University (jongho at snu.ac.kr)
Fall 2026
class hours: Mon, Wed 9:30 - 10:45 (office hours: Tu 2:30 - 4:30)
Jongho Jun
Linguistics, Seoul National University (jongho at snu.ac.kr)
Fall 2026
class hours: Mon, Wed 9:30 - 10:45 (office hours: Tu 2:30 - 4:30)
Investigate the phonology of an exotic language.
By “exotic” I mean that no courses on that language are offered at SNU and it’s relatively less studied.
(1) What to do:
Choose a language.
Try to find a single book or paper about it with the titles like the following:
Ponapean reference grammar
A grammar of Diola-Fogny
An introduction to the Yoruba language
Phonology of the Navaho language
…
(N.B. You may use the inter-library loan service.)
Focus on a single book/paper unless it is too short (say, less than 20 pages).
The chosen book/paper must be written in English.
Learn and find out the phonological characteristics of your chosen language by reading the chapters on the phonology (& phonetics & morphology) in the book/paper.
(Optional) In order to confirm what you have found out, you may conduct an interview with a native speaker of that language if you can find one.
Report the following (in the in-class presentation and paper):
(i) an overview of the phonology of the chosen language
(ii) interesting facts, focusing on how its phonology is different from that of much studied languages like English (and your native language).
(You are supposed to use terms and formats discussed in class and the text.)
(2) Paper
Each group should submit a collective paper.
(Suggested) Length: 3-5 pages.
Submit both hard and electronic copies.
Email the electronic copy (in pdf) to jongho at snu.ac.kr.
Format of file name: Your student numbers and names followed by the language name
e.g. 02변학도-17성춘향-36이몽룡_Ponapean
Grading: S/U (Extra credits may be given to those who conducted an excellent project.)
(3) Schedule
9/21 (Mon): Find your teammates by then. (If you fail, I’ll help you.)
10/7 (Wed): Submit a single page with the following information (in both hard and pdf format):
(i) Names of your group members,
(ii) The language you chose,
(iii) A brief explanation of why you chose it, and
(iv) The basic information of the book/paper that you take for this group project: the title, author, publication year, page length of crucial chapters etc.
Presentation using a handout (and/or ppt): TBA (tentative: 11/2 – 11/4)
Paper due: TBA (tentative: 11/9 (Mon))
The TBA dates will be set after the number of teams is determined.
(1) What to do:
a. Choose topic
Standard: a phonological phenomenon in a certain language/dialect (e.g. English Tapping, Maasai spirantization, Korean stop nasalization)
- Phenomena that involve alternations are usually suitable as topics for time-limited projects.
Any other topic would be O.K. if it is related to phonology: e.g. phonotactics of native Korean names.
b. Find references (preferably recent ones).
c. Construct the research hypotheses (mainly based on your review of the previous research).
- These research hypotheses will be tested by conducting experiments, surveys, or interviews with native speakers of the language or dialect you are interested in.
- New lexical strata or environments may be examined: e.g., different dialects, young (or old) generation’s speech, loanwords, second language productions and made-up words.
- Caveat: Remember that it is usually difficult for you to hear the phonetic distinctions that are not phonemic in your native language.
d. Collect the data while testing your research hypotheses and checking the reported facts.
e. Provide an analysis for the data, based on what you have learned in class.
The term paper project may be considered as a special type of data analysis homework that requires you to analyze the data collected by yourself, instead of the data given by me or in the book.
You are supposed to provide phonological rules (or constraints) to explain your data.
f. Provide conclusions: comparison with previous studies and remaining problems.
(You may adapt this procedure to your particular project.)
(2) Paper
(Suggested) Length: 4~7 pages.
Submit both hard and electronic copies.
- Email the electronic copy (in pdf) to jongho at snu.ac.kr.
- Format of file name: Your student number and name followed by a short description of the topic
- e.g. 02변학도_Korean assimilation
Sample term papers
- Bruce Hayes's web page
http://brucehayes.org/120a/index.htm#samplepapers
(3) Schedule
Select topic and meet with (or e-mail) me by Nov 3
Submit a one-page progress report by Nov 18.
Paper Presentation: Nov 30, Dec 2, 7
Paper Due: Final exam day (Dec 9)
Bruce Hayes's homepage
Phonetic fonts
Search google for "IPA character picker". You may copy & paste phonetic symbols from the site you found. For faster copy-and-paste, you may visit http://ipa.typeit.org/full.
Doulos SIl font: https://software.sil.org/doulos/.
More information is available on IPA webpage: https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-fonts.
IPA symbol chart
Feature-learning program
Pheatures (Java-based implementation; Floris van Vugt)
Speech analysis program
Praat (Paul Boersma & David Weenink)