Morphologically Conditioned Phonological Asymmetries in Kyungsang Korean

Abstract

This paper deals with two types of morphologically conditioned noun-verb asymmetries in Kyungsang Korean. In Kyungsang Korean, before a consonant-initial suffix, opacity between post-obstruent tensing and consonant cluster simplification occurs in verbal inflection, but not in nominal inflection. Before a vowel-initial suffix, optional overapplication of consonant cluster simplification applies for nominal inflection but not for verbal inflection. This paper analyzes the morphologically conditioned phonological asymmetries in Kyungsang Korean based on Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains (McCarthy 2007), which can explain opacity as well as the different behaviors depending on the part-of-speech by regulating the order of processes in a constraint. Alternative analyses based on Stratal OT (Kiparsky 2000) and base-derivative correspondence (Benua 1997) are also discussed.