A Phase-based Distributed Morphology Approach to Honorific (Non)suppletion in Korean

Abstract

This paper provides a formal analysis of the suppletion of the verb root √EXIST. It argues that the suppletive exponents are subject to the Phase Impenetrability Condition (Chomsky 2000). The root √EXIST has two suppletive exponents: the honorific exponent /kyey/ and the negative exponent /eps/. We focus on the different morphophonological realizations, /iss-(u)-si/ and /kyey-si/, from seemingly the same morphological concatenation of √EXIST-HON- (and /eps-(u)-si/ and /an-kyey-si/ from NEG- √EXIST-HON-). By examining two √EXIST constructions in the affirmative and negative contexts, we propose that the two postsyntactic operations, i.e., feature copying and fusion, are engaged in the realization of √EXIST as /kyey/ and /eps/, with the overall analysis of contextual allomorphy couched in Choi & Harley (2019), Chung (2007, 2009), Kim & Chung (2015), and Kim & Chung (2017). We further argue that these two morphological operations take place under the interaction among the elements limited in the same phase/spell-out domain and in a stepwise fashion observing the Phase Impenetrability Condition.