An Analogy-based Study of Optional /l/-insertion in Korean Verbal Conjugation

Abstract

In Korean verbal conjugation, /l/ is optionally inserted in ‘lɯ’-irregular stems and before ‘ljʌ’-initial suffixes, which results in double /l/s. While the insertion in ‘lɯ’-irregular stems has been accounted for by paradigm uniformity, not many researchers in phonology have shown their interest in /l/ insertion before ‘ljʌ’-initial suffixes. In search of the motivation, we measured the epenthetic rate before ‘ljʌ’-initial and other phonologically similar suffixes in a spoken corpus. We show that the insertion only occurs before ‘ljʌ’-initial suffixes, suggesting it is not phonologically conditioned. We argue that /l/ is inserted in analogy to /l/-initial suffixes (e.g., ‘-llako’ and ‘-lk’a’). Most of all, these suffixes share semantic functions such as ‘intent’, ‘expectation’ and ‘desire’ with ‘ljʌ’-initial suffixes. In addition, some of these /l/-initial suffixes optionally delete /l/, giving birth to /l/~ ∅ alternation. A sociolinguistic analysis of the corpus revealed that the epenthetic rate was higher in southern provinces, where the non-standard form ‘-llako’ has been common. This study demonstrates that analogical changes can occur in suffixes as well as in stems.