Coda condition and licensing in place assimilation

Abstract

Lee, Sechang. 2001. Coda condition and licensing in place assimilation. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 7.2. 353-373. This paper aims to propose a licensing constraint responsible for triggering assimilated or linked structure in phonology. It will be noted that while Lombardi (1999)'s proposal is adequate descriptively, but it has a problem in 'extending her analysis to place assimilation. The fact that the direction of place assimilation is typically regressive constitutes very strong evidence for the licensing approach to assimilation. As I will show in this paper, a translation of place assimilation analysis into the OT with licensing and alignment constraints allows a theoretically consistent explanation. I begin with the Korean paradigm and develop a theory of place assimilation in general. Then, I will show that the theory has the advantage of handling the variation among the place assimilation effects of other language, English. It will be shown that the interlinguistic variation among Korean and English lies in the re-ranking of a single constraint in the relevant constraint hierarchy. (Sookmyung Women's University)