Leveling in verbal paradigms in casual speech of Korean

Abstract

This paper describes leveling in verbal paradigms in casual speech of Korean and tries to provide an explanation to it. Based on the recent trend in which /l/-final verb stems take //-initial suffixes in casual speech, not C-initial counterparts in standard speech and drawing on G-R. Kim (2006)’s argument on suffix allomorphy, it is pointed out here that leveling in suffixes results in leveling in verbal paradigms. Suffixes, which alternate between C- and //-initial allomorphs depending on the [vocalic] feature of stem-final segments in standard speech, tend to look to the [consonantal] feature in casual speech. This leads in turn to the simplification of suffixes by making reference to [consonantal], instead of both [vocalic] and [consonantal], in selecting proper allomorphs. For example, Prefective of sal- ‘to live’ is changing from san to saln in casual speech. In other words, verbal suffixes in casual speech regard the stem-final /l/ as one of ordinary consonants, which take //-initial allomorphs. In the Optimal Paradigms model of McCarthy (2005), this trend in casual speech can be described as a result of re-ranking OP constraints above markedness and IO-faithfulness constraints, making a case where difference in speech style comes from constraint ranking difference. However, this study presents a case where no change in constraint ranking might be needed, given the leveled suffix list. Responsible for leveling in verbal paradigms may be a kind of ongoing regularization in casual speech in the sense that verbal suffixes uniformly look to the [consonantal] feature of stem-final segments. In consequence, people do not have to make any special effort to memorize the verb stem final /l/ as an irregular and exceptional segment. Incidentally, casual speech can also avoid homonyms which might be brought forth in standard speech.