영어 설측음 이음 분포와 방언변이

Allophonic Distribution of English Laterals and Dialectal Variation: An Optimality-theoretic Approach

It is widely held that lateral allophony in English is explained in a simple and uniform way. The dark 'l' occurs in syllable-final position and clear 'l' appears in syllable-onset position(McMahon 2002). This paper, however, shows that the uniform explanation does not reflect the dialectal variation concerning English laterals. It is shown in this paper that the lateral allophones are variously distributed in surface depending on dialects. This paper claims that the different realizations need to be analyzed by dynamic permutations of phonologically-based constraint ranking, not by phonetically-based statements. The phonologically-based account proffered in this paper is couched within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004).