A prosodic analysis of nonderived-environment blocking

Abstract

Korean t-palatalization, which creates phonemic affricates, does not apply in nonderived forms, while s, n, 1-palatalization, which creates allophones, does apply in nonderived forms. Previous analyses of the failure of t-palatalization in Korean to apply in nonderived environments, (nonderived-environment blocking (NDEB), to use Kiparsky's (1993) term) have tried to account for NDEB effects either in terms of constraints on rule application (e.g., the Revised Alternation Condition and the Strict Cycle Condition) or in terms of contextual underspecification. I will argue that NDEB in fact comes from the prosodically determined environment for t-palatalization: unsyllabified /t, th/are the only consonants to undergo t-palatalization, subject to independently motivated phonological principles (i.e., Extraprosodicity). By doing so, the analysis unifies phonological and morphological ‘derivedness’ and also allows previously unrelated phenomena in Korean to be accounted for in a unified manner, e.g., Consonant Cluster Simplification, Coda Neutralization, S-neutralization, and palatalization.