Iconic Vowel Alternations in Korean Ideophones: A Formal Analysis
Keywords: sound symbolism, iconicity, vowel harmony, Korean, phonology, Optimality Theory, ideophones
TL;DR: In this work, we develop an Optimality Theoretic analysis of the iconic vowel alternations and harmony in Korean ideophones which advocates for the incorporation of constraints promoting sound symbolism in the core grammar.
Abstract: This abstract is to be considered for an in-person talk or poster in the main session of WCCFL 43, 2025.
Korean ideophones often come in near-identical pairs that can be distinguished from one another by the quality of their vowels. Specific vowel qualities are iconically and systematically associated with diminutive and augmentative connotations, and alternate accordingly. There are nevertheless asymmetries in the system: vowels of the same height are assigned different connotations depending on their rounding, which has important consequences for the behavior of the system as a whole. In this work, we describe the precise pairings involved in these symbolic alternations, why they are paired as such, and how this informs the analysis of other peculiarities in the data that have yet to be explained in a satisfying way. In our Optimality Theoretic analysis, we show that the interplay between constraints promoting sound symbolism and general, independently motivated constraints is what derives the irregular harmonic classes that have traditionally presented a challenge for developing a unified phonological analysis attributing these alternations to modulations of a single phonological feature. Additional peculiarities of Korean's system to be addressed in the full presentation include the positional neutrality of high vowels, which demonstrates how the maintenance of sound-symbolic phonological distinctions between ideophones with different size connotations is prioritized by effectively imposing a minimum requirement of expression, forcing vowels that otherwise do not alternate to do so. Moreover, we show how the mixed neutral behavior of surface [u] is a natural consequence of the system as we have described it rather than an exceptional characteristic of it, providing even more support for our approach compared to previous ones.
Submission Number: 239
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