Sensitivity to Phrase-initial Tone and Laryngeal Feature Identification of Foreign Learners of Korean

This paper reports on an identification test where KFL learners identified the Korean three-way laryngeal contrast in the phrase-initial position, when the phrase-initial tone was systematically manipulated. It turns out that heritage learners have some sensitivity to phrase-initial tone and show a plain-aspirated alternation in their identification according to the phrase-initial tone, as native speakers do, whereas non-heritage students do not show such tone sensitivity. However, after a weekly prosody training, second-year non-heritage students have shown a significant improvement in their performance. This paper clearly shows that the phrase-initial tone plays a critical role in distinguishing laryngeal features of Korean obstruents, and also suggests that prosody including the tone-segment correlation should be incorporated in the KFL curriculum.