In the Seoul dialect, the pronunciation of vowels is different according to the age of speakers, and so the vowel system is also different. Generally speaking, speakers over sixty years of age pronounce the vowel e in two ways;one is [*] and the other is [*:].The former [*] corresponds to the Middle Korean vowel e in a low or high accent and the latter [*:] to e in a low-high accent.These two vowels appear almost complementary to each other, i.e. [*] appears as a short vowel and [*] appears as a long vowel in most cases.In spite of that, I think that each of these two vowels falls to a different phoneme for the following reasons: (1)each vowel of the Seoul dialect, except [*] and [*], has an opposition of quantity in the word-initial syllable, but the sound value of a long vowel is not different from the correspnding short vowel, (2) usually, [*] appears as a long vowel and [*] as a short vowel, but there are a few examples where [*] appears as a short vowel and we can also find a few examples where [*] appears as a long vowel.Therefore I consider [*] and [*] correspond to different phonemes.Consequently, there are nine vowel phonemes, /i, e, e, a, a, o, u, i, a/;and each vowel has the opposition of quantity in the word-initial syllable in older people's pronunciation.The vowel system of speakers over sixty years of age is shown as [2] of table 1.
In contrast to older speakers, younger people have a very simple vowel system which consists of seven vowels, /i, e, a, o, u, i, A/. Thus we find the very interesting situation that speakers of the Seoul dialect have different vowel systems depending on their age group.This is the result of diachronic changes that have occurred over the last few decades.
I investigated eighteen informants who were native to the mid-town area of Seoul in 1988 and 1989 to clarify how vowels changed according to the age of speakers.The types of vowel systems shown at table 1 were found in the investigation.
The vowel changes according to the speakers'age groups can be pictured as shown at the table 5.
[*:] of groups [1] and [2] phonemically changed into [i:] in groups [3] and [4] for basic words which they learned orally in their childhood, but in literary words they borrowed [*:] from the older people's pronunciation.
[*:] was brought into the pronunciation of group [5] by the influence of the written language, i.e.spelling pronunciation, as language education began to follow a regulated curriculum from primary school, and additionally due to the analogical change in the verb conjugation which first occurs in this group. In group [6], [i:] and [*:] joins [*:] due to the increasing influence of the written language and in addition by the analogical change in verb conjugation.
In group [7], long vowels lose length and accordingly [*:] changes into [A], losing lip-rounding.
With respect to the front vowel opposition, group [1] and [2] have a clear distinction in initial syllables, but in non-initial syllables it hasalready disappeared as a rule except in morpheme-boundary position. Roughly speaking, most informants of groups that follow group [3] show unstable distinction even in initial syllables.
Considering the above-mentioned vowel change, it can be summarized that the change goes on very gradually in each age group because it occurs under the linguistic influence of elderly groups to restrain from the change and also being receded by interference of the written language and analogical change.Thus we see the reason why the different vowel systems can exist synchronically in the same speech community.

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The purpose of this paper is to argue for the necessity of positing a concept of‘phenomeneme’for adequately describing polysemous words which refer to objects and phenomena in the outer world.A phenomeneme is a part of the world which we cognize as having spacial or temporal coherence before we give it a linguistic expression.For instance, the event of a person leaving a place is a phenomeneme from which we create two basic meanings‘go away from’and‘cause something to remain’, focusing our attention on different aspects of one and the same phenomeneme.From this standpoint, the author analyzes the polysemous structures of take and its Japanese equivalent toru and compares the two.Toru means both‘acquire’and‘remove’, which can only be related if we presuppose an underlying phenomeneme of a person grasping an object and removing it by hand. He also analyzes a Japanese verb huku which means‘blow, emit, etc.’Cognitive polysemy implies non-cognitive polysemies one of which is logical polysemy.To exemplify this, the author analyzes without and the English present participial construction, which show a parallelism in their diversification of meanings.The recognition of phenomenemes as closely related to linguistic meaning is flatly opposed to Saussurian structuralism.

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The purpose of the present study is to show the applicability and usefulness of the experimental method for investigating the semantic structures of polysemous words. This approach rests on a basic tenet that the semantic relatedness which native speakers perceive between the uses of a polysemous word should be relied on as fundamental data to clarify the polysemous structure of that word.
In this study, subjects estimated on a 7-point scale the semantic similarity of pairs of sentenses containing a polysemous verb simeru.
The results were analysed by a non-metrical multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analyses, and the whole structure of semantic relatedness for simeru was represented in terms of a configuration in the 3-dimen-sional semantic space.
In specifying the polysemous structure on the basis of the semantic space, it was argued, the most appropriate model should be one with chain structures with each sense connected on family resemblances.
According to this model each sense is characterized by semantic attributes which may have gradient values and overlap one another. As a result of the analysis on this model, simeru was found to comprise 8 elemental senses which in turn got together to form 5 major sense groups.

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t is widely accepted that in the field of functional (non-organic) speech disorders in Japanese, there are ‘typical’ misarticulation patterns. It has also been pointed out, on the other hand, that there are ‘atypical’ cases which exhibit deviant errors that do not conform with the common error patterns.
The present paper is addressed to the solution of this apparently paradoxical problem by appealing to three linguistically significant concepts, namely underlying and phonetic representations and phonological rules. It is argued that any system can and has to have ambient-like or deviant underlying and phonetic representations. It is also argued that errors are not necessarily governed by dynamic phonological rules, either ambient-like or deviant. The present analysis results in a typological classification of eight types across the misarticulating population. The typology properly covers each and every misarticulation system. This analysis also claims that the ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ paradox is reduced to a mere statistical problem among the eight types of disordered systems.
*This research was suported in part by grants from the United States National Institute of Health (NS20976, DC00260) and by a grant-in-aid from the Japanese Ministry of Education for the Specially Promoted Project ‘Emergence of Human Cognition & Language’.

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The purpose of this paper is a description of the phonological system and phonetic details of the central Vientiane dialect of Lao. A syllable is analyzed into three elements. They are the consonant, the rhyme, and the tone. The rhyme has a vowel and a final consonant.
There are twenty consonants; / p, t, c, k, ?, ph, th, kh, b, d, m, n, _??_, _??_, f, s, h, w, y, l / . There are nine vowels; / i, e, ε, _??_, ∂, a, u, o, _??_/, and three dipthongs; / ia, _??_a, ua / . Each vowel has the phonemic contrast between short and long. And there are nine final consonants; / p, t, k, ?, m, n, _??_, w, y/.
The tones are five for native speakers of central Vientiane. The five tones are low rising, high rising, high mid level, low falling and high falling. However, there is a non-phonemic distinctive variation in the low rising tone category.
This dialect also shows an exceptional syllable with no final consonant only when the vowel is / a / in the non-final syllable of the polysyllabic word. It is unstressed and neutral in the tone.

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