The Study of Advanced Articulation of the Korean Affricates

현대 한국어 파찰음의 조음점 전진 현상에 대한 연구

The affricates of the Korean were alveolar sounds in the 15th century. Alveolar sounds have changed to post-alveolar or alveo-palatal sounds since the 18th century, at least in Southern Korean. These days, the advanced articulation of the affricates are observed, especially in the speech of young generations. The aim of this paper is to show the differences of the affricates when they are pronounced in alveo-palatal and in a more advanced position than in alveo-palatal by their cut-off frequencies. We have recorded speeches of freshmen(in their early twenties) at Seoul National University. The result was that the cut-off frequency of the advanced articulation in auditory observations was higher than that of the others. We have found in particular, that women have tendency to advance their place of articulation of the affricates.