earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to analyze the spirantization in English suffixation with Optimality Theory. In Lexical Phonology, spirantization is explained with the rule ordering, based on the Siegel’s(1974) affix classification and ordering hypothesis. Spirantization rule is applied after the class 1 affixation in stratum1(Mohanan, 1986). However, several scholars point out that classification of affixes has a few problem such as bracketing paradox, stress assignment and so on(Selkirk, 1982; Mohanan, 1982; Booij and Rubach, 1984; 이용성, 2010). This paper also points out that not all the class 1 suffixes beginning with /i/ change the final stem /t/ sound into /s/, and Lexical Phonology cannot identify a reason why some of the class I suffixes transform /t/ into /s/. Therefore, this paper proposes that spirantization can be analyzed within the framework of OT and a plausible reason for the occurrence of spirantization can also be presented.