earticle

영어

Velar softening, partly historical and partly synchronic in nature, has been dealt with in many different frameworks. The g→ǰ change is predictable, but the k→s change is unexpected and defies an easy explanation. In this paper, we review two key issues in English velar softening. The first issue is the predictability of these changes. The review of Lee(2004) and Randomski(2010) shows that velar softening is unpredictable and that there should be multiple inputs for all words that undergo velar softening. It is proposed in this paper, however, that in most cases we can dispense with multiple inputs. The second issue is the trigger of the velar softening process. It is assumed that part of i-initial suffixes triggers the change. The analysis in this paper shows that contextual velar softening can be explained with a single input, and we limit the use of multiple inputs only for historical residues.