Aspects of Assimilation in English

조형묵 한국언어연구학회 2012 언어학연구 Vol.17 No.1

The goal of this paper is to provide an account for the assimilation processes in English. To be specific, this paper attempts to explain the different application modes of assimilation in English within the framework of Optimality Theory and discusses the direction of assimilation. Assimilation in English can be divided into voicing assimilation and place assimilation. These two kinds of the assimilation processes show different applicability in level 1 and level 2. For instance, nasal place assimilation applies when level 1 affixes are attached to the stem. However, this rule does not apply when level 2 affixes are added. In the case of voicing assimilation, the sound in the stem changes in level 1, while the sound in the affix changes in level 2. This paper provides an account for the different application modes of assimilation in level 1 and level 2 with the slightly modified version of constraint IDWD proposed in Borowsky (2000). In addition, the explanation of the direction of assimilation is provided in terms of perception and psychological prominence

현대러시아어의 유성성 자질

최성호(Sung-ho Choi) 충북대학교 러시아 알타이지역 연구소 2012 러시아학 Vol.- No.8

This article first surveys the phenomena of voicing assimilation and devoicing in terms domain (morphological word and phonological word/phrase) and scope (within the scope of segment and in the segmental sequence), and then discusses the contrastive behavior between obstruents and non-obstruents with respect to voicing assimilation. Previous attempts at explaining the non-assimilative power of vowels and sonorants are critically examined. The non-obstruents have been suggested to have the voicing feature redundantly, so that their voicing feature do not trigger voicing assimilation during phonological processes. Instread this paper maintains that obstruents, rather than non-obstruents, are responsible for the lack of assimilation in the sequence of ‘obstruent+vowel/sonorant’, and argues that they have positional variants in terms of tensedness: Before obstruents, they are non-tensed, while before non-obstrents they are tensed. The paper concludes that voicing assimilation takes place because the target obstrents are non-tensed.

English Voicing Assimilation

박정희 대한영어영문학회 2009 영어영문학연구 Vol.35 No.4

This paper shows the explanation of English Voicing Assimilation by means of using the interaction with markedness constraints and faithfulness constraints within Optimality Theory. By using the binary obstruent voicing features, [+voice] and [-voice], as well as by changing the definition of AGREE into AGREE/σ we can explain the progressive and regressive assimilation. Also, we separate two levels of affixation: derivational affixes relating to regressive assimilation and inflectional affixes for progressive assimilation.

English Voicing Assimilation

( Park Jeong-hee ) 대한영어영문학회 2009 영어영문학연구 Vol.35 No.4

This paper shows the explanation of English Voicing Assimilation by means of using the interaction with markedness constraints and faithfulness constraints within Optimality Theory. By using the binary obstruent voicing features, [+voice] and [-voice], as well as by changing the definition of AGREE into AGREE/σ we can explain the progressive and regressive assimilation. Also, we separate two levels of affixation: derivational affixes relating to regressive assimilation and inflectional affixes for progressive assimilation. (Sogang University)

조부 효과와 동화의 유형적 차이 분석

김선회 한국언어학회 2008 언어 Vol.33 No.4

This paper analyzes the typology of assimilation (voicing assimilation and place assimilation), focusing on the 'grandfather effect' (McCarthy 2002, 2003a) observed in the case where the assimilation to marked structures is not allowed but the assimilation to unmarked structures is allowed. It recognizes that Hall (2007) accurately points out a flaw in McCarthy (2002, 2003a) where the typological difference in assimilation cannot be explained. This paper, however, shows that contrary to Hall's argument, the flaw has not been caused by the separation of markedness constraints, and proposes that IDENT(F) in McCarthy's analysis should be replaced with MAX(F) constraints. This proposal means that IDENT(voice) should be replaced with MAX(voice) in voicing assimilation and IDENT(place) should be replaced with the universally fixed constraint ranking MAX(dors), MAX(__cor) » MAX(lab) » MAX(cor), MAX(__lab|dors), which originates from Jun (1995), to retain the separation of markedness constraints. Further, this paper shows that the separation strategy of IDENT(F) also accounts for the grandfather effect cases in assimilation.

유성장애음소 설정을 통한 유성음 간 평장애음 유성음화 문제 해소

고영진 ( Ko Young-jin ) 한민족문화학회 2019 한민족문화연구 Vol.66 No.-

기존의 한국어 장애음소 체계에 대한 연구는 대부분 유성장애음의 존재를 인정하지 않는다. 그러나 실제 한국어는 유성음 사이에서 유성장애음이 발화된다. 이와 같은 사실을 설명하기 위해 학자들은 유성장애음이 유성음사이 에서만 발음되는 것에 근거해 한국어는 유성장애음소는 존재하지 않으나, 무성평장애음이 유성음 사이에서 유성음으로 변화하여 발화되는 음운현상이 있다고 주장한다. 이와 같은 주장은 무성음이 유성음 사이에서 유성음으로 동화하는 자연스런 음운현상으로 인식돼 당연한 것으로 받아들여지고, 이는 한국어에는 유성장애음소가 없다는 주장의 근거가 됐다.하지만 한국어의 경우 무성평장애음은 유성음 사이에서 유성음으로 동화한다는 주장과 일치하지 않거나 심지어 역행하는 음운현상까지 있어, 유성음사이 무성평장애음 유성음화 규칙은 문제가 있음을 알 수 있다. 한국어 음소체계에서 무성평음으로 분류되는 ‘ㅅ’은 유성음 사이에서 유성음으로 변화되지 않으며, 미국영어를 배우는 한국어 모어 화자는 영어중간어에서 약음절의 무성장애음을 유성음으로 발음하지 않으며, 한국어의 무성평장애음으로 중화된 어말종성은 모음으로 시작하는 접사가 붙어 유성음사이의 환경이 조성되더라도 유성음으로 발음되지 않고 유기음이나 긴장음 등 본래 음소의 음가를 그대로 간직한 무성음으로 발음된다. 이는 한국어 무성평장애음 유성음화 규칙에 문제가 있음을 증명한다. 이와 같은 문제는 고영진(2015)의 주장처럼 한국어의 유성장애음소를 인정하면 해소된다. 한국어에서 유성장애음이 유성음 사이에서 발화된 것은 유성장애음소가 그대로 발화된 것이며, 기존의 연구들과 달리 한국어의 유성음사이의 환경은 어떤 음운변화도 유발하지 않는다. 그러나 유성장애음소가 무성평음으로 발화되는 음운변화현상이 있어 설명이 필요하다. 이는 한국어의 경우 유성장애음소가 형태소(단어)의 초성과 종성으로 발음될 때 무성음으로 발화되는 ‘유성장애음 무성음화 규칙’으로 설명한다. 그리고 이와 같은 현상은 여러 언어에서 보이고, 음성학적인 측면에서도 초성의 경우 성대의 떨림 준비가 덜 돼있고, 어말장애음의 경우 불파폐쇄음으로 중화되기 때문에 기도에서 기류의 흐름이 멈춰 성대가 떨리지 않는 매우 자연스런 음운현상이라고 할 수 있다. There is no acceptance on the existence of the voiced obstruent phonemes in Korean by almost all of the current and former studies. But voiced obstruents are uttered in the context of intervoiced in real Korean speeches. To explain the situation, scholars insist on the existence of the phonological phenomena that even though voiced obstruents are not existed as phonemes in Korean but uttered in the intervoicing context because of voicing assimilation. And the assertion is considered as a natural phonological process, since assimilating to adjacent sounds is normal and it becomes the evidence of the assertion.But in Korean, as there are some phonological phenomena not in line with or even reversal to the idea that intervoiced voiceless plain obstruents are voiced, the assertion has some problems.Even though ‘ㅅ’ is classified to voiceless plain obstruents in the system of Korean phoneme, it is not changed to a voiced sound in intervoiced context, the sounds neutralized to voiceless plain consonants at the end of a word are revived to their origin sounds of properties voiceless even though they are in the intervoiced context by adding vowel initial affixes and all of them prove ‘the intervoiced voiceless plain obstruents voicing rule’ in Korean has problem. And Korean speakers learning American English do not pronounce weak syllable intervoicing voiceless obstruents as voiced ones in their inter language of English and it is another one to contradict the rule.This study solves the problem by accepting Ko (2015) assertion that Korean has voiced obstruents as phoneme. So the voiced obstruents pronouncing in intervoced context are the sounds of origin without any change and the intervoiced context is not the trigger of any phonological changes in Korean. But we need one thing to explain the reason why voiced obstruents are pronounced as voiceless ones at the beginning and end of a word and the rule ‘voiced obstruents devoicing rule’ changing voiced obstruents to voiceless ones at the beginning and end of a word is the answer for that. And the rule is natural since voiced obstruents devoicing phenomena at the situations is normal in many languages and in phonetic idea of VOT and unexplosion of the obstruents at the end of a word stop moving airstream in the vocal track and not make possible to vibrate vocal folds.

The locus of exceptionality: morpheme-specific phonology as lexical specification

Jin-hyung Kim(김진형) 한국음운론학회 2006 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.12 No.3

  This paper is to offer a more consistent analysis to the apparent asymmetry in directionality observed in the examples of English obstruent voicing assimilation: /leafz/ → lea[vz] vs. /belief-z/ → belie[fs]. Drawing on the question "why does the one and the same phonological process of voicing assimilation occur progressively in some cases and regressively in others?", this paper proposes that there is no difference in the direction of application of English obstruent voicing assimilation in sandhi environments: voicing assimilation occurs uniformly under the meta-ranking of FAITHSTEM ≫ FAITH-AFFIX. By exploiting the use of morpheme-specific lexical representations from the lexicon-oriented perspectives, both regular and exceptional assimilation patterns can be explained more consistently without resorting to any ad hoc stipulations of morpheme-specific constraints, morpheme-specific constraint rankings, or arbitrary input forms of the affix.

영어의 유성성 동화현상 분석

이세창(Lee, Sechang) 한국언어학회 2013 언어 Vol.38 No.3

My purpose in writing this article is to bring to light certain insight into the natural directionality of voice assimilation in English. All available evidence seems to converge to show that different boundaries accompanied by affixes in different levels are responsible for determining the direction of voice assimilation. The idea is essentially due to Lexical Phonology in the sense of Kiparsky(1982, 1985). But I provide a deeper understanding of the nature of the phenomena. Linguistic systems strive toward a state of equilibrium. I assume that the presence of either primary or secondary affixes breaks a certain balanced state of the system and triggers the voice assimilation to reach the equilibrium again. Two different types of affixes trigger either regressive or progressive assimilation in voice. There are some apparent exceptions to this generalization. I claim that those apparent exceptions are attributed to the absence of the boundaries in question, which is intuitively convincing. The fundamental features of my analysis will be compared tableau by tableau with those of Kang(2002).

유/무성 동화 체계 내에서의 대칭성과 비대칭성 - 음소 /v/와 공명성을 중심으로 -

이성민 중앙대학교 외국학연구소 2014 외국학연구 Vol.- No.27

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new representation of the so-called Russian /v/ from a feature structural point of view. To this end, I will first review the earlier studies on the phonetic/phonological status of this segment responsible for the controversial [v]~[w] alternations. I will then point out the problems of the earlier approaches and propose a feature-structure accounting for the ambivalence with respect to its sonority and consonantality. Based on this proposal, I will demonstrate how this new representation can account for the various alternation processes and voicing assimilation.

상고 중국어에서의 유성 폐쇄 말음 음운 과정 분석

장재웅,이영월 중앙대학교 외국학연구소 2015 외국학연구 Vol.- No.32

This paper is intended to show how the development of voiced stop coda in Old Chinese can be explained in a unified manner under the Non-linear Phonology, specifically by Feature Geometry Theory. The conclusion is that the geometry form of the *-g in Old Chinese is the [dor], [dor]-[lab], [dor]-[cor], which is important in assimilation. When the [+C] feature is dominated by the node manner of the preceding nucleus, it spreads to the node manner of the following consonant, and can be developed as *-d > -i, *-g(-gw) > -u, *-gj > -i. Finally, when the coda is changed to a vowel, it is linked with the V tier. On the other hand, the *-g > -ø change can be explained as follows: when [+back] feature is dominated by the dorsal node of the following coda it spreads to the preceding nucleus, it gets the round lip of the preceding vowel, and then the dor node of the coda can be delinked.