모음탈락과 모음축약의 음운론적 상관성

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to elucidate the phonological relation between vowel deletion and vowel coalescence, focusing on the interaction among phonological features. In the previous segment-based research on hiatus resolution, vowel deletion and vowel coalescence have been generally analyzed as different phonological processes, even though they conspire with other processes such as glide formation, glide insertion, and diphthogization in regulating a vowel sequence without an intervening consonant or glide. The present study, however, argues that vowel deletion and vowel coalescence are virtually identical processes, sharing the same phonological motivation of realizing phonologically active features in Korean. As phonologically active features, features such as [-back],[-high], and [+round] are selected in phonetic outputs over features such as [+back],[+high], and [-round]. In this respect, this study emphasizes the importance of selecting the accurate phonological unit in the analysis of phonological phenomena and capturing phonologically-significant co-relations among phonological processes. Based on the analysis of this study, it can be argued that the segmental difference between vowel deletion and vowel coalescence is a merely epiphenomenon of feature faithfulness. In addition, the traditional division of hiatus-related phonological processes into vowel deletion and vowel coalescence can be regarded as a theoretical residue of segment-based phonological research.