Second Language Variation: Optimality Theoretic Analyses

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to account for Korean learners’ production of English lateral-coronal nasal sequences, focusing on phonological variation problematic in Optimality Theory. We use some constraints and their rankings (*ln >> Max [lateral] >> Ident (Coda lateral, tense) >> Max [nasal]) to account for phonological variation with regard to L2 production of English lateral-coronal nasal sequences with two approaches. The Rank-Ordering Model of Eval is better than the free ranking approach in terms of economy, learnability, and the classical OT principle of strict domination that Kager (1999: 407) mentioned. The Rank-Ordering Model of Eval, however, does not show L2 learners’ developmental process from lateralized production to English-like production. It merely selects a candidate as the most well-formed output and another candidate as the second most well-formed variant. In order to account for L2 learners’ developmental process of production, we need to re-rank the low-ranked constraints. We can use the cut-off line (i.e. double line) between the two constraints to indicate the flexibility of constraint ranking. It implies that the direction of L2 learners’ developmental process of production is changed from Ident (Coda lateral, tense) >> Max [nasal] to Max [nasal] >> Ident (Coda lateral, tense) at a later stage, but not vice versa. (Chungbuk National University)