On Hiatus Resolution with the Vocative Marker -a

Abstract

Yim (2024) investigates the obligatory omission of the noun-forming suffix -i before the vocative marker -a, attributing it to haplology. Under Yim’s approach, the phi-features on the suffix are immediately followed by the same type of phi-features on the vocative marker, leading to the omission of the former. In contrast, this paper advances a hiatus resolution-based analysis for the omission at issue. Observing that glide insertion generally occurs before the vocative marker when the noun attached with the marker ends in a vowel, we argue that hiatus resolution, rather than haplology, drives the omission of the noun-forming suffix. This analysis avoids appealing to phi-features, whose presence in Korean syntax lacks strong empirical support. Additionally, we demonstrate that certain problematic cases for Yim’s approach are naturally accounted for under the general pattern of hiatus resolution in Korean.