A moraic study of some phonological phenomena in English and Korean

The purpose of the study is to present a more satisfactory account of some phonological phenomena in English and Korean by employing the framework of moraic phonology.In Chapter 1, I review CV phonology and present the representations and the general principles of moraic phonology. I also provide the moraic and syllabic structures in English and Korean.Chapter 2 discusses the formal representation of ambisyllabic consonants in terms of moraic theory. I claim that the notion of ambisyllabicity capturing the shared feature of a consonant has a real intuitive appeal and that ambisyllabicity and gemination are not in complementary distribution among languages; i.e., they should be given different representations. I also show that the moraic representation of ambisyllabicity makes some better predictions than the CV representation of it (e.g., Clements and Keyser 1983). With the notion of ambisyllabicity, I reexamine English aspiration and flapping.In Chapter 3, I deal with various syllable weight-related issues. First, I claim that there are two types of glide formation in Korean; i.e., one that is optional triggers CL, and the other that is obligatory fails to induce CL. Reanalyzing the /i/-deletion processes of Korean, I show that CL in Korean is a mirror image rule. I also provide a reanalysis of the /l/-irregular predicates in Korean, and assert that not /l/-deletion but Intersonorant /i/-deletion induces CL. The pattern here is 'VCV $\to$ V:CO. I consider a case of this sort from Middle English. In addition, I discuss some other consonant deletion rules which happen to be related to CL.Chapter 4 deals with interaction between phonological rules and conditions. First, I reanalyze the so-called CC Shortening in English, claiming that shortening here is the automatic disconnection, due to Structure Preservation, of part of the long vowel, which occurs with the incorporation of the consonant into the syllable. Second, I show that consonant cluster simplification in Korean is directly related to the moraic structure and the 'morified' syllabification process. Finally, I claim that no explicit orderings among some phonological rules need be specified in the grammar, for they are predictable by universal and language-particular principles.In Chapter 5, I provide a brief overview of the thesis and discuss some of the implications for linguistic theory.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio