Unexpected Nasal Consonants in Joseon-Era Korean

Abstract

The diminutive suffixes ​-ngaji​ and ​-ngsengi​ are unique in contemporary Korean inthat they both begin with the velar nasal consonant (/ŋ/) and seem to be ofKorean origin. Surprisingly, they seem to share no direct genetic affiliation. Butby reverse-engineering sound change involving the morpheme-initial velar nasalin the Ulsan dialect, I prove that the historical form of ​-aengi​ was actuallymaximally ​-ng​; thus the suffixes ​-ngaji and -ngsaengi​ are related if we considerthem to be concatenations of this diminutive suffix ​-ng​ and the suffixes ​-aji​ and-sengi​. This is supported by the existence of words with the ​-aji​ suffix in which theinitial velar nasal ​-ᄋ​ is absent and which have no semantic meaning ofdiminutiveness.