This study was conducted to analyze geminate consonant errors(안에 [an.ɛ] → *안네[an.nɛ]) produced by Chinese learners during their acquisition of Korean linking sounds within the framework of Optimality Theory. The study was further intended to find possible constraints and causes applicable to the error. This paper argues that this error results from the interplay of the Align-R constraint, where the boundaries of a morpheme and syllable are aligned in the learner’s mother tongue, and the onset constraint, which is required for CV, a universal linguistic syllable. This study identifies the cause of the geminate consonant errors among Chinese leaners as the consequence of the simultaneous influences of interference from the learners’ native language and of linking sounds, which occur universally in linguistics.

This study is to show the inadequacy of OT-based analyses of opacity, thus defending rule-based analyses. Analyses in the OT`s framework such as Two-Level Constraints, Sympathy Theory, OO- Correspondence Relation, and Local Conjunction of constraint are found to be inappropriate or costly in solving the problem of opacity in Kyungsang dialect of Korean. Post-Obstruent Tensing applies opaquely in close relation to Consonant Cluster Simplification, where violation marks for the opaque candidate and its transparent counterpart are in a proper subset relation. In such a case, any OT-based analysis suffers theoretical strictures.

Haksoo Jeon & Daewoong Kang. 2000. Optimality Theoretic Analysis of English Word Stress. Studies in Modern Grammar 19, 139-170. This paper approaches English word stress within the framework of Optimality Theory. We have seen that there are constraints that interact to produce correct word stress pattern. Foot structure constraints, Ft-Bin, Ft-Form, and WSP, are undominated. Therefore the trochaic footing and quantity requirement are strictly obeyed in English foot building. Non-Head(e) guarantees that underlying schwa accounts for various apparent exceptions. This paper identifies four different such subcategorization constraints : Align-to-δ, Align-in-δ, Align-to-Ft, and Align-to-PrWd. What is really interesting in this approaches that one suffix may have more than one constraint, thereby restricting its appearance in actual words. One step further, this paper shows that the present approach can also explain the so-called cyclicity effect of the stress assignment. Previous cyclical stress theory fails in explaining the difference between the derived and underived word. Therefore, this paper provides new solutions to the old problem of accounting for the difference between the derived and underived words regarding the stress assignment and wellformed word formation.