earticle

영어

Compensatory lengthening (CL) refers to the process whereby the deletion of a segment leads to the lengthening of another segment. The traditional moraic approach to CL (Hayes 1989, among others) predicts that only deletion of mora-bearing segments, i.e., vowels and coda consonants, can induce this phenomenon. In this paper, however, we show that the deletion of an onset consonant in Old English (OE) can result in CL, bringing to light the aspects of CL triggered by the deletion of non-moraic segments. In doing so, we also point out that the traditional account of the phenomenon is not adequate. Reconsidering CL with onset consonant deletion in OE within the framework of correspondence theory (McCarthy and Prince 1995), we argue that a constraint-based approach can provide a better account of the phenomenon. (Sunchon National University ‧ Wonkwang University)