Reevaluating Syntax-to-Phonology Mapping in Korean: An Optimality-Acoustic Account

Abstract

This paper offers an optimality-based revision of previous syntax-driven analyses for detennining how prosodic constituency is derived from phrase structure in Korean. Under this revision, syntax-to-phonology mapping constraints (Selkirk 1987) appear to be outranked by a metrical constraint that idealizes minor phonological phrases as binary branching. This analysis accounts not only for data previously discussed in the literature on Korean phrasal phonology, but also for previously problematic data: the acoustic behavior of lax stops in existential expressions of the sort 'father(-NOM) exists'. Taken together, the theoretical discussion and the quantitative acoustic data under investigation reaffirm the notion that determining prosodic structure requires reference not only to syntactic information, but also to phonological conditions that constrain the nature of prosodic units.