Morphophonological gradience in Korean n-insertion

Abstract

This study addresses the questions of what factors may have a gradient effect in application of a morphophonological process, how they interact, and which of the gradient effects speakers are aware of, by investigating the variation patterns of Korean n-insertion. An analysis is performed on the results of two surveys on speakers of two dialects of Korean, Seoul and Kyungsang, one using existing words and the other using novel Korean words. From the results of the survey on n-insertion in existing Korean words, I have found several gradient tendencies involving a variety of factors including phonological and morphological ones and their interactions. Such factors include morphological category, etymology and length of component morphemes, sonorancy and place of articulation of the consonant preceding the insertion site, height of the initial vowel of the morpheme following the insertion site and dialects of speakers. None of these factors are absolute conditions for the occurrence of n-insertion, contrary to the previous studies on Korean n-insertion, and they have gradient effect, contributing to the overall probability of n-insertion. Consequently, Korean n-insertion provides a clear case where previous categorical proposals do not match with gradient reality, lending support to quantitative theories of morphophonology.