The noun-verb asymmetry in Korean phonology

This paper deals with difference between nouns and verbs in phonological alternations in Korean. The noun-verb asymmetry in glide formation, stem-final i-deletion, stem vowel shortening and intervocalic cluster simplification can be explained in a systematic way without resorting to different boundaries or arbitrary delimitation of rule application. The locus of explanation lies in the observation that nouns have a special status as prosodic words. The constraint, N=PWD, captures the generalization. The alignment constraint, ALIGN-PWD, to which nouns are subject but verbs are not, is responsible for the difference between nouns and verbs. The high-ranking nature of ALIGN-PWD is responsible for blocking nouns from undergoing the phonological alternations found in verbs. Further, it is shown that ALIGN-PWD works as a selector in the sympathy analysis of consonant cluster simplification. As such, the optimality analysis captures the generalization behind the noun-verb asymmetry and provides an insight to understanding Korean vowel phonology.