An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the Initial Sound Law in Korean

This study examines the Initial Sound Law in Korean within the framework of Optimality Theory. In Korean, some nasal and lateral sounds are avoided in word-initial position. Many rule-based or constraint-based theories (Davis and Shin 1999; Kim-Renaud 1974; Park 2010, etc.) have been proposed to account for this phenomenon. However, the rules or constraints given in the previous studies are highly language-specific, and markedness constraints play too strong a role in the constraint ranking while faithfulness constraints do not contribute significantly to the analysis. Instead, we propose more general, less language-specific constraints that are related to the sonority hierarchy: The sonority difference between C and V in word-initial position must be a minimum of 3. This constraint interacts with other general markedness and faithfulness constraints and succinctly explains the target phenomenon.