Deriving the Metrical Head in Standard Korean

Abstract

Standard Korean is known to have vowel length contrasts. It has, however, been proposed that the Korean long vowel is phonetic, whereby a long vowel reflects an elongation of vowel duration under stress (Ko 2002, 2013). This paper is a follow-up on this proposal to analyze the long vowel as a metrical head, whose derivation is shown in the framework of Halle and Idsardi (1995). The algorithm for deriving the metrical head involves formal proposals for the Projection, Edge Marking, and Head Location parameters for designating the most prominent syllable in the word. The metrical head is phonetically rendered prominent with the elongation of the vowel, which is audible in the initial syllable but to a lesser degree in the second (Ko 2013). The proposed algorithm provides a principled explanation for the so-called verb stem vowel shortening phenomenon by applying the cross-linguistically attested accent clash resolution.