• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2024

The Korean three-way stop contrast (lenis, aspirated, fortis) is currently undergoing a sound change, such that the primary cue distinguishing lenis and aspirated stops is shifting from voice onset time (VOT) to F0. Despite recent discussions of this shift, research on voice quality, traditionally considered an additional cue signaling the contrast, remains sparse. This study investigated the extent to which the associated voice quality [as reflected in the acoustic measurements of H1^*-H2^*, H1^*- A1^*, and cepstral peak prominence (CPP)] contributes to the three-way stop contrast, and how the realization is conditioned by prominence- vs. boundary-induced prosodic strengthening amid the ongoing sound change. Results for 12 native Korean speakers indicate that there was a substantial distinction in voice quality among the three stop categories with the breathiness of the vowel being the greatest after the lenis, intermediate after the aspirated, and least after the fortis stops, indicating the role of voice quality in the maintenance of the three-way stop contrast. Furthermore, prosodic strengthening has different effects on the contrast and contributes to the enhancement of the phonological contrast contingent on whether it is induced by prominence or boundary.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.3-10
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze the acoustic characteristics of Korean alveolar sibilant sounds of children with cerebral palsy by acoustic analysis. Thirteen children with spastic cerebral palsy aging from 6 to 10 years old, were selected by an articulation test, and compared with a control group of thirty children. The meaningless monosyllable CV, disyllable VCV(/asa/) and frame sentence including target syllables CV were measured. C was from the /s, s'/, and V was from the set /a, i, u, ${\varepsilon}$, o, ɯ, ʌ/. Multi-Speech was used for data recording and analysis. As a result, the frication duration of lenis-glottalized alveolar sibilant of children with cerebral palsy was significantly shorter than that of the control group in CV, VCV and frame sentence. The vowel duration in the following lenis-glottalized alveolar sibilant of children with cerebral palsy was significantly longer than that of the control group in CV, VCV and frame sentence. The children with cerebral palsy showed frequency and intensity of friction intervals which were significantly lower than in the control group in CV, VCV and frame sentence. In the comparison of the lenis-glottalized alveolar sibilant by the children with cerebral palsy group's phonation types, the frication duration showed a significant difference between the phonation types in CV, VCV and between the phonetic contexts. The glottalized-sibilant was longer than the lenis-sibilant in all the phonetic contexts. The subsequent vowel duration showed a significant difference between the phonation types in VCV and between the phonetic contexts(p<.05). The vowel duration in the following glottalized-sibilant was longer than the vowel duration in the following lenis-sibilant in all the phonetic contexts. In the frequency there was a significant difference between the phonation types in CV, and in the intensity there was a significant difference between the phonation type in CV and VCV. The children with spastic cerebral palsy had difficulty in articulating the alveolar sibilant due to poor control ability in laryngeal, respiration and articulatory movements which require fine motor coordination. This study quantitatively analyzes the acoustic parameters of the alveolar sibilant in various phonetic contexts. Therefore, the results are expected to help provide fundamental data for an intervention of articulation treatment for children with cerebral palsy.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2020

Traditionally it has been understood that the aspirated and lenis stops in Seoul Korean are distinguished primarily by voice onset time (VOT) and secondarily by other cues such as the fundamental frequency (F0) of the following vowel. However, recent studies on stop production have shown that the aspirated and lenis stops are currently merging in VOT and that they are now differentiated primarily by F0. In the present study, we examined whether the currently reported change in the production domain would be also found in the perception domain. To this end, an auditory identification task was conducted using speech materials of varying VOT and F0 values with young and older male and female Seoul listeners. Results revealed that all listener groups used both VOT and F0 to distinguish the lenis vs. aspirated stops but they used the F0 cue more reliably than the VOT cue in discriminating the stop contrast. The effects of gender and age were found only in the VOT cue (i.e., not in the F0 cue), with the greatest VOT cue weight in older males and the smallest in young females, which is in line with recent production studies.

• MALSORI
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• no.spc1
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• pp.24-32
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• 2002

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.3-10
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• 2010

The proposal that a sound change is occurring in Korean stops was evidenced in this study through identification experiments on Korean stops. Perceptual weight of acoustic correlates to Korean stop manner contrast [VOT (Voice Onset Time), H1-H2 (amplitude difference between the first and second harmonics), and F0 (Fundamental frequency)] was examined with re-synthesized /$t^ha$/, /ta/, and /$t^*a$/ syllables for younger and older Seoul speakers of Korean. For the identification of the aspirated and lenis stops, F0 cue weight relative to VOT was greater for the younger listeners than the older listeners. For H1-H2 cue weight, the two listener groups were more or less the same. These findings were parallel to the production differences found in the earlier work of the author. Combined with production differences, these perception differences between younger and older generations of Seoul speakers suggested that there are generational differences in the phonetic targets of Korean aspirated and lenis stops and such differences are realized in the perception of the stops.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Cognitive Science Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.163-167
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• 2005

Current theories of cross-language speech perception claim that patterns of perceptual assimilation of non-native segments to native categories predict relative difficulties in learning to perceive (and produce) non-native phones. Perceptual assimilation patterns by Japanese listeners of the three-way voicing distinction in Korean syllable-initial obstruent consonants were assessed directly. According to Speech Learning Model (SLM) and Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), the resulting perceptual assimilation pattern predicts relative difficulty in discrimination between lenis and aspirated consonants, and relative ease in the discrimination of fortis. This study compared the effects of two different training conditions on Japanese adults’perceptual categorization of Korean three-way distinction. In one condition, participants were trained to discriminate lenis and aspirated consonants which were predicted to be problematic, whereas in another condition participants were trained with all three classes of 'learnability' did not seem to depend lawfully on the perceived cross-language similarity of Korean and Japanese consonants.

• MALSORI
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• no.33_34
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• pp.43-55
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• 1997

This study examined one of the hypotheses on the consonant reduction in Korean inferred from the Articulatory Phonology framework through phonetic experiments: Degree of consonant reduction depends on the height of the neighboring vowels--the lower the height of the neighboring vowel is, the higher the degree of reduction of stop closure period is. The results of this study, in general, turned out to support the hypothesis with some cases requiring other phonetic considerations, e.g., rate of some tongue tip movement in the case of dental lenis stop /t/ or the facts that bilabial lenis stop /p/ share its primary articulators, lips, with the neighboring vowel /u/ and that for bilabial closure, the upper lip lowers more for compensation of little movement of lower lip when its raising gets disturbed for some reasons.

• MALSORI
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• no.39
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• pp.15-24
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• 2000

This study aims to reexamine Korean Lenis Stop Voicing (henceforth, LSV) and to specify its phonetic conditions in phonetic terms. LSV optionally occurs within certain prosodic domains. They are called 'Malthomak'(Lee, 1996),'phonological phrase'(Kang, 1992), or 'accentual phrase'(Jun, 1993). On the basis of Jun's phrasing, this study focuses on the more specific phonetic conditions of LSV in the accentual phrase medial position, sub-classifying voicing as complete and partial. The results shows that whether the stops become completely voiced or partially voiced was determined by the various phonetic environments, such as adjacent segments and following intonational phrase boundaries. It is shown that the conditions of LSV should be described in terms of more detailed phonetic environments and that they could be used in predicting the class of voicing.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 1998

In this paper production and perception data were examined to discover what acoustic features are used in distinguishing wh-questions and yes/no-questions. Production data show that the two question types are distinguished by different accentual phrasing, pitch ranges in wh-phrases, and initial lenis stop voicing of the first syllable in verb phrases. Perception data by synthetic intonation show that the two question types are distinguished by the width of pitch ranges between the first and the second syllable in wh-phrases. Initial lenis stop voicing of the first syllable in verb phrases produces a strong effect on the perceptual discrimination of the two question types.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.230-233
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• 2007

In the literature on the tense consonants in Korean, it has been proposed that this consonant is underlyingly represented by a single consonant (the singleton hypothesis) and that it is represented by a sequence of two lenis consonants (the geminate hypothesis). One piece of the empirical evidence supporting the geminate hypothesis is that the closure duration of tense consonants in intervocalic position is more than twice as long in comparison with their lenis counterparts. In this paper, we report on the closure duration of three types of plosives in various phonotactically permitted contexts in Korean. The results of the measurement show that the duration of the tense consonants in post-sonorant contexts is reduced by a third in comparison with that of the intervocalic ones. These temporal differences suggest that the measurement of closure durations in intervocalic position alone is not sufficient to sustain the geminate hypothesis.