CONTEXTUALLY-DEPENDENT WEIGHT OF CLOSED SYLLABLES: CASES OF THE NORTH KYUNGSANG DIALECT AND ENGLISH

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper discusses contextually-dependent weight of closed syllables in loanwords of the North Kyungsang dialect of Korean and English within the framework of Optimality Theory. It is shown that closed syllables of loanwords of the North Kyungsang dialect are generally light but behave heavy at word-initial and final position to satisfy a higher-ranked metrical constraint. Closed syllables of English also show contextually-dependent weight: they are generally heavy but behave light at word-final position in order to satisfy a higher-ranked metrical constraint. By showing that context-dependent weight of closed syllables can be analyzed as a consequence of interaction between metrical constraints and coda weight constraints in Optimality Theory, this paper demonstrates superiority of Optimality Theory in accounting for linguistic phenomena.