A Contrastive Analysis of [h]-deletion: English vs. Korean

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to show the contrastive aspects of [h]-deletion in Engkish and Korean within the framework of Optimality Theory (henceforth, OT). In this paper, we will show that [h]-deletion can be effectively accounted for when we take positional elements into consideration as its conditioning factor. Traditionally, [h]-deletion in English has been understood as a stress governed process. However, [h]-deletion does not occur in word-initial positions even though [h] comes before an unstressed vowel (e.g. Hawáii, haráss, etc.). This shows that stress is relevant to the deletion of [h] but that is not the only conditioning factor in English. The distribution of [h] is only partially contingent on stress (cf. Hammond 1999). By contrast, in Korean [h]-deletion usually occurs in the syllable-initial position, an exception being the word-initial position (e.g. /ahop/→[aop] 'nine', /homi/→[homi] *[omi] 'a weeding hoe'). Since Korean is not a stress‐timed language, stress cannot be a conditioning factor for the [h]-deletion process. However, [h]-deletion is not effective in word-initial positions both in English and Korean regardless of stress. This suggests that the word-initial position is strongly pronounced/perceived in speech whether stressed or not.