Korean partial reduplication reconsidered

In a series of papers, Jun (1991, 1993, and 1994) develops an analysis of partial reduplication in Korean ideophones in which both the input and the output must consist of a single foot ending in a closed syllable. Thus, according to Jun, Korean partial reduplication displays metrical weight consistency. In Jun's analysis, partial reduplication involves the suffixing of the final base syllable with the subsequent deletion of any coda consonants from the original final syllable of the base. His analysis crucially assumes that Korean tense (or fortis) consonants and aspirated consonants are underlyingly geminate (or moraic). In this paper we offer a different analysis of Korean partial reduplication framed within the prosodic circumscription theory of McCarthy and Prince (1990). We argue that reduplication entails the suffixing of a syllable template to the initial bisyllabic foot, with a foot-final consonant being extraprosodic. We show that our analysis is preferable to that of Jun's in that it accounts for patterns of partial reduplication that Jun did not consider. These patterns call into question the maintenance of metrical weight consistency. Moreover, we show that the Korean phonological evidence does not support Jun's crucial assumption that Korean fortis and aspirated consonants are underlyingly geminate or moraic.