불규칙용언의 역사적 변천과 제약서열의 변경

Abstract

It is the purpose of this paper to argue that it is a better choice to handle the so-called ‘/p/-irregular stems’ in Korean as resulting from a historical stepwise re-ranking of a particular constraint in the framework of the Optimality Theory. In line with much of traditional research on those irregular stems, I adopt the basic assumption that their current irregularities are triggered by the loss of the underlying segment /β/ in the 15th century. The characteristic alternation between [β] and [w] will be captured by a conception of assimilation to surrounding vowel features. In my diachronic approach this does not require any exceptional statement but turns out to be an automatic consequence of the re-ranking of a particular constraint. An interesting implication of this approach comes from a comparison with ‘/s/-irregular stems’. Those two types of irregular stems are claimed to have undergone a similar historical process and it will be proposed that the phonologically unpredictable behaviors of the latter can be unified with those of the former. These apparently different two threads are all joined into a unified conception of the interaction and re-ranking of the relevant universal constraints.