The Origin of Sino-Korean Coda-l

Abstract Among the stop endings of Middle Chinese entering tone, the alveolar stop -t was consistently changed to -l in Sino-Korean while -p and -k remained the same. In his article in the Journal of East Asian Linguistics, Martin (1997) claims that Sino-Korean coda -l was derived from a liquid of a northwestern dialect of the late Tang and Five dynasties, in which Middle Chinese coda -t was changed to -d > -r. This article, however, points out some problems of Martin's view and attempts to present evidence that Middle Chinese coda -t was already changed to -l in Old Sino-Korean even before the lenition of Middle Chinese alveolar stop endings took place in the northwestern dialects of Tang China. Accordingly, this article claims that Sino-Korean coda -l was not an external change but an internal change.