IPA- 눈 (Snow)

On a little mountain path,
when white snow gently piles up,
I wish to leave my small footprints forever


Until my little heart is dyed white,
I wish to wander
the snow-white mountain path


When a lonely winter bird’s cry is heard from afar,
ripples arise in my reverie and I forget the path

I will engrave in my heart your pure voice

Is it coming, carried on the wind?
It comes as white snow

Far away, my heart runs through the forest

Ah, the winter bird is not seen,
only a white trace remains

Closing my eyes,
I will listen to your endless song

I imperceptibly become white snow
and walk along the mountain path

1. Aspiration: 하얗’s coda ㅎ fully merges with 게’s onset ㄱ into aspirated [k], with no residual coda left behind, since ㅎ has no oral closure of its own to leave a trace of. This differs from the ㄱ/ㄷ/ㅂ/ㅈ(+representative t)+ㅎ direction, which keeps its own subscript placeholder because a real stop closure remains.

2. 온다: the ㄴ belongs to the present-tense ending -ㄴ다 attaching to the vowel-final stem 오-, not to a stem-final consonant, so rule 24’s tensification doesn’t apply; the plain ㄷ onset voices after the sonorant ㄴ instead: [dɑ]. Recurs at 걸어간다오.

3. Aspiration: 않의 cluster ㄶ (ㄴ+ㅎ) leaves ㄴ in coda, and its ㅎ merges with 고’s onset ㄱ to aspirate it: [ko], not tensified [k͈o].

4. 끝없는: 끝’s coda ㅌ resyllabifies onto 없 (null onset) and voices to [d] in this weak position, the same exception confirmed for 끝없이. From there the two words diverge: 없이 has a vowel-initial ending, so its cluster’s ㅅ moves onward and tensifies; 없는 has a consonant-initial ending (ㄴ), so there’s nowhere for ㅅ to move — the cluster instead simplifies (ㅅ drops) and the remaining ㅂ nasalizes to [m] before ㄴ, the same pattern as 없다→[엄따]-type nasalization.