• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.57-61
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• 2020

Previous research has indicated that the patterns of phonetic modulations induced by prominence are not consistent across languages but are conditioned by sound systems specific to a given language. Most studies examining the prominence effects in Korean have been restricted to segments in word-initial and phrase-initial positions. The present study, thus, set out to explore the prominence effects for Korean stop consonants in word-medial intervocalic positions. A total of 16 speakers of Seoul Korean (8 males, 8 females) produced word-medial intervocalic lenis and aspirated stops with and without prominence. The prominence was induced by contrast focus on the phonation-type contrast, that is, lenis vs. aspirated stops. Our results showed that F0 of vowels following both lenis and aspirated stops became higher when the target stops received focus than when they did not, whereas voice onset time (VOT) and voicing during stop closure for both lenis and aspirated stops did not differ between the focus and no-focus conditions. The findings add to our understanding of diverse patterns of prominence-induced strengthening on the acoustic realizations of segments.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.39-48
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• 2009

Previous studies on the effects of speaking rate on voice onset time (VOT) of stops in English, French, Icelandic, and Thai indicate that speaking rate asymmetrically affects VOT values. That is, pre-voiced and long-lag stops vary due to the rate factor more than short-lag stops do. One suggested explanation for this asymmetry is that it is due to the necessity of maintaining phonetic contrasts among the stop categories. Since pre-voiced and long-lag stops represent the ends of the VOT scale, they encompass broad swathes of that range and consequently allow for large variations. On the other hand, the VOT variations of short-lag stops may result in overlap with the VOTs of long-lag stops. This study aimed to explore the effects of speaking rate on the VOTs of Korean stops and see whether Korean fortis and lenis stops are limited in the degrees of variation as a function of rates due to the existence of stops with larger VOT values, lenis and aspirated stops respectively. Conversely, aspirated stops were expected to show more variation since there are no other categories with longer VOTs. Fortis, lenis, and aspirated stops in /CVn/ words (C = bilabial or velar stop, V = /i/ or /a/) were examined in isolation, and at normal and fast rates in a carrier sentence. Speaking rates were controlled by alternating words or sentences on a computer screen at intervals of two seconds for the isolation- and normal-rate conditions and one second for the fast-rate condition. This study found that while the VOTs of fortis stops did not change significantly, those of lenis and aspirated stops showed considerable changes as a function of speaking rates. Also, overlap between lenis and aspirated stops occurred considerably at all speaking rates. These phenomena were interpreted to relate to the fact that VOT contrasts between lenis and aspirated stops in Korean are currently being collapsed. Large variations of lenis stops as a function of rates seem to occur due to a weak motivation to limit the degree of variations for the purpose of maintaining phonetic contrasts. The significant overlap between lenis and aspirated stops at all rates was interpreted to occur because the VOT merger between the two categories became considerably fixed. Also the percentage of correctly-classified VOTs by optimal-boundary values between lenis and aspirated stops turned out to be lower than in previously-studied languages. This was interpreted to be further evidence that VOTs are losing their role in contrasting the two stop categories in Korean.

• MALSORI
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• no.44
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• pp.61-72
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• 2002

The purpose of this research is to investigate how Japanese speakers perceive and produce Lenis, Aspirated and Fortis consonants in Korean. Identification tasks and production tasks were performed. The error analysis of both task showed that the participants had a significant difficulty in discriminating between Lenis and Aspirated sounds. And it was observed that there was a positive correlation between identification scores and production scores.

• MALSORI
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• no.64
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• pp.53-76
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• 2007

This study investigates phonation types of Korean obstruents associated with the vowels immediately following singletons or geminates in intervocalic positions. F0, H1-H2, and spectral tilt were measured from the 20 ms segment at the onset of the vowels for the tokens of /paCa/ and /paCCa/, where Cs are of the same manner and place of articulation. The results showed a remarkable change in the values of F0, H1-H2, and spectral tilt as the preceding obstruents shifts from the lenis singletons to the lenis geminates, which suggests that the spectral characteristics of the vowels following the lenis geminates are not different from those of the vowels following fortis singletons or geminates. Significantly enough, this study adds data about the spectral characteristics of Korean phonation types.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.89-95
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• 2015

We explored Dutch listeners' perception of Korean three-way contrast of fortis, lenis, and aspirated stops. The three Korean stops are all voiceless word-initially, whereas Dutch distinguishes between voiced and voiceless stops, so Korean voiceless stops were expected to be difficult for the Dutch listeners. Among the three Korean stops, fortis stops are phonetically most similar to Dutch voiceless stops, thus they were expected to be the easiest to distinguish for the Dutch listeners. Dutch and Korean listeners carried out a discrimination task using three crucial comparisons, i.e., fortis-lenis, fortis-aspirated, and lenis-aspirated stops. Results showed that discrimination between lenis and aspirated stops was the most difficult among the three comparisons for both Dutch and Korean listeners. As expected, Dutch listeners discriminated fortis from the other stops relatively accurately. It seems likely that Dutch listeners relied heavily on VOT but less on F0 when discriminating between the three Korean stops.

• MALSORI
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• no.53
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• pp.17-35
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• 2005

A New Method of Extracting the Filter Characteristics of the Nasal Cavity Using Homorganic Nasal-Stop Sequences: A Preliminary R eportHansang ParkThis study provides a new method of extracting the filter characteristics of the nasal cavity. Korean lenis stops are realized as voiced in the homorganic nasal-lenis stop sequences between vowels. Since the only difference between the two members of the homorganic nasal- lenis stop sequences, such as [mb], [nd], and [ g], is whether the passage to the nasal cavity is open or not, the subtraction of the LPC spectrum of the voiced stop from that of the preceding nasal leads to the filter characteristics of the nasal cavity of an individual speaker regardless of place of articulation. The results suggest that various attempts should be made to extract a robust filter characteristics of the nasal cavity by giving variation to LPC coefficients and by paying particular attention to speech samples. This study is significant in that it provides a preliminary report about a new method of extracting the filter characteristics of the nasal cavity.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.195-203
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• 2014

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of phonation types ([+/- aspirated], [+/- fortis]) on aerodynamic measures with Korean bilabial stops. Sixty-three healthy young adults (30 males, 33 females) participated to evaluate the VOEF (Voicing Efficiency) tasks with bilabial stop consonants /$p^h$/, /p/, /p'/ using Phonatory Aerodynamic System (PAS) Model 6600 (Kay PENTAX Corp, Lincoln Park, NJ). All VOEF measures were significantly influenced by phonation types except RANP(pitch range)(p <.01). For sound pressure, maximum SPL, mean SPL, and Mean SPL during Voicing have been shown to be significantly greatest in fortis stop /p'/ than aspirated /$p^h$/ and lenis stop /p/ (p<.001). On the other hand, mean pitch after lenis stop was significantly lower than after aspirated and fortis stops (p<.001). Peak expiratory airflow, Target airflow, and FVC (Expiratory volume) were significantly lowest in fortis stop /p'/ which might be associated with higher aerodynamic resistance while peak air pressure and mean peak air pressure during closure were significantly lower in lenis stop /p/. Additionally, AEFF (Aerodynamic efficiency) was significantly higher in fortis stop /p'/ than lenis stop /p/ as well as aspirated stop /$p^h$/ (p<.001). Thus, sound pressure, airflow parameters, and aerodynamic resistance made crucial roles in distinguishing fortis /p'/ from lenis stop /p/ and aspirated. Additionally, pitch and subglottal air pressure parameters were important aerodynamic characteristics in distinguishing lenis /p/ from fortis /p'/ and aspirated /$p^h$/. Therefore, accurate aspirated /p/ stop consonant should be elicited when collecting the airflow, intraoral pressure related data with patients with voice disorders in order to enhance the reliability and relevance or validity of aerodynamic measures using PAS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.18-26
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• 1997

There are two types of phonetic study, acoustic and physiologic, for differentiating the three manner categories of Korean stop consonants. On the physiologic studies, there are endoscopic, electromyographic(EMG), electroglottographic(EGG) and aerodynamic studies. In this study, I tried to investigate general features of Korean stops using EGG study for the open quotient of vocal fold and baseline shift during speech, and aerodynamic characteristics for e subglottal air pressure, air flow and glottal resistance at consonants. On the aerodynamic study, the glottalized and aspirated stops may be characterized by e increasing subglottal pressure comparing with lenis stop at consonants. The airflow is largest in the aspirated stops followed by lenis stops and glottalized. The glottal airway resistance (GAR) showed highest in the glottalized followed by the lenis, but lowest in e aspirated during e production of consonants, and showed highest in e aspirated, but low in the glottalized and lenis during the production of vowel. The glottal resistance at consonant showed significant difference among consonants and significant interaction between subject and types of consonant. The glottal resistance at vowel showed significant difference among consonants, and e interaction occured between subject and types of consonant. The electroglottography(EGG) has been used for investigating e functioning of e vocal folds during its vibration. The EGG should be related to the patterns of the vocal fold vibration during phonation in characterizing the temporal patterns of each vibratory cycle. The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic change of EGG waveforms during continuous speech. The dynamic changes of EGG waveforms fir the three-way distinction of Korean stops were characterized that the aspirated stop appears to be characterized by largest open quotient and smallest glottal contact area of the vocal folds in e initial portion of vocal fold vibration ; the lenis stop by moderate open quotient and glottal contact area ; but the glottalized stop by smallest open quotient and largest glottal contact area. There may be close relationship between the OQ(open quotient) in the initial voice onset and the glottal width at the time of consonant production, the larger glottal width just before vocal fold vibration results in the smaller OQ of the vocal fold vibration in the initial voice onset. The EGG changes of baseline shift during continuous speech production were characterized by the different patterns for the three types of Korean consonants. The small and less stiffness change of baseline shift was found for the lenis and the glottalized, and the largest and stiffest change was found for the aspirated. On the baseline shift for the initial voice onset, they showed so similar patterns with for the consonant production, larger changed in the aspirated. for the lenis and the glottalized during the initial voice onset, three subjects showed individual difference each other. I suggest at s characteristics were strongly related with articulatory activity of vocal tract for the production of consonant, especially for the aspirated stop. The suspecting factors to affect EGG waveforms are glottal width, vertical laryngeal movement and the intrapharyngeal pressure to neighboring tissue during connected spech. So the EGG may be an useful method to describe laryngeal activity to classify pulsing conditions of the larynx during speech production, and EGG research can be controls for monitoring the vocal tract articulation, although above factors to affect EGG would have played such a potentially role on vocal fold vibratory behavior obtained using consonant production.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.39-51
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• 2021

Based on spontaneous speech data collected in 2020, this study examined the production and perception of Korean lenis, aspirated, and fortis stops. Unlike the controlled experiments of previous studies, lenis and aspirated stops of males in their 30s were not distinguished by voice onset time (VOT) in spontaneous speech. Perceptual experiments were conducted on young females, the leaders of language change. F0 was found to serve as the primary cue for the perception of lenis stops, and then VOT distinguished the aspirated and fortis stops. The fact that the sounds were always perceived as lenis stops when F0 was low, irrespective of whether VOT was short or long, showed that F0 plays an absolute role in the perception of lenis stops. However, in some cases the aspirated and lenis stops were distinguished only by VOT, which does not happen in production. In terms of sound change, disagreement between production and perception systems occurs when sound change is in progress. In particular, when production change precedes perception change, it indicates that the sound change is in its latter stages. Young females still maintain the previous system in perception because the distinction of lenis and aspirated stops by VOT was valid in their parents' generation. In other words, VOT is still used for perception to communicate with other groups.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.49-61
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• 2016

The present study investigates the perception of Korean phonation types by native speakers of Aymara. Perception tests were conducted on two sets of Korean speech materials to determine correspondence between Korean and Aymara 3-way contrasts and to find out which of the consonantal and vocalic part of the syllable is more influential in the perception of Korean phonation types. A set of manipulated stimuli, as well as a set of 12 spontaneous words, were prepared for the tests. The first syllable of the 12 Korean bisyllabic words of 3 series of phonation types(Lenis, Aspirated, and Fortis) in 4 places of articulation were split into consonantal and vocalic parts. And then the two parts were combined to form 9 tokens of CV sequences respectively for each place of articulation. Native speakers of Aymara were forced to match Korean stimuli with one of the 15 Aymara words which represent 3 series of consonant types(plain, aspirated, and ejective) in 5 places of articulation(bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular). Results showed that the consonantal part is more influential than the vocalic part to the Aymara subjects' perception of Korean phonation types when the consonantal part is Aspirated in its phonation type, but the vocalic part is more influential than the consonantal part when the consonantal part is Lenis or Fortis in its phonation type. Response analysis showed that Aymara subjects tend to match Korean stops to Aymara ones in such a way that Lenis corresponds to aspirated, Aspirated to aspirated, and Fortis to plain.