• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2007.05a
• /
• pp.109-113
• /
• 2007

Second language learners' variable degree of production difficulty according to the cluster type has previously been accounted for in terms of sonority distance between adjacent segments. As an alternative to this previous model, I propose a Phonetically Based Consonant Cluster Acquisition Model (PCCAM) in which consonant cluster markedness is defined based on the articulatory and perceptual factors associated with each consonant sequence. The validity of PCCAM has been tested through Korean speakers' production of English consonant clusters.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.233-247
• /
• 2004

This study explores sound alternations in a consonant cluster in which at least one consonant is a sonorant (a son/C cluster, hereafter). In this study, I argue that phonological processes affecting son/C clusters result from low perceptual salience rather than from the Syllable Contact Law as discussed in Vennemann (1988), Clements (1990), Rice & Avery (1991), Baertsch & Davis (2000), among others. That is, as a main factor motivating the alternations in the cluster, I consider contrasts of weak perceptibility triggered by phonetic similarity between two members of a cluster (Kawasaki 1982, Ohala 1992, 1993). Based on the findings from a typological survey in 31 different languages, I show that a speech perception-based account makes a correct prediction regarding the patterning of sonorant/sonorant sequences and that of obstruent/sonorant sequences, while the syllable contact account does not.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.83-92
• /
• 2010

The present study examined how listeners of Seoul Korean would recover deleted phonemes in consonant cluster simplification. In a phoneme monitoring experiment, listeners had to monitor for C2 (/k/ or /p/) in C1C2C3 when C2 was deleted (C1 was preserved) or preserved (C1 was deleted). The target consonant (C2) was either /k/ or /p/ (e.g., i$\b{lk}$-t${\partial}$lato vs. pa$\b{lp}$-t${\partial}$lato), and there were two listener groups, one group tested in 2002 and the other in 2009. Some points have emerged from the results. First, listeners were able to detect deleted phonemes as accurately and rapidly as preserved phonemes, showing that the physical presence of the acoustic information did not improve the listeners' performance. This suggests that listeners must have relied on language-specific phonological knowledge about the consonant cluster simplification, rather than relying on the low-level acoustic-phonetic information. Second, listener groups (participants in 2002 vs. 2009), differed in processing /p/ versus /k/: listeners in 2009 failed to detect /p/ more frequently than those in 2002, suggesting that the way the consonant cluster sequence is produced and perceived has changed over time. This result was interpreted as coming from statistical patterns of speech production in contemporary Seoul Korean as reported in a recent study by Cho & Kim (2009): /p/ is deleted far more often than /p/ is preserved, which is likely reflected in the way listeners process simplified variants. Finally, listeners processed /k/ more efficiently than /p/, especially when the target was physically present (in C-preserved condition), indicating that listeners benefited more from the presence of /k/ than of /p/. This was interpreted as supporting the view that velars are perceptually more robust than labials, which constrains shaping phonological patterns of the language. These results were then discussed in terms of their implications for theories of spoken word recognition.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.39
• /
• pp.381-406
• /
• 2015

Russian nasal consonants / m /, / n / have a feature value not only [+consonant] in common with obstruents, but also [+sonorant] in common with vowels. Nasal / m /(bi-labial) and / n /(dental) have the same place of articulation but different manner of articulation. The feature value of / m / is [+cons, +son, +nas, +ant, -cor, -high, -low, -back, -cont, -del, rel, -strid, +voic], and that of / n / is [+cons, +son, +nas, +ant, +cor, -high, -low, -back, -cont, -del, rel, -strid, + voic]. There is a difference in feature [cor] value of / m / and / n /. In this study it is confirmed that it is a fact that the Russian nasal consonants behave differently from the other consonants in each phonological phenomenon due to their phonological characteristics. The preceding voiced obstruent is changed to an unvoiced one in a process where the last voiceless obstruent in the consonant cluster ' voiced obstruent + nasal /m/ + voiceless obstruent' skips the nasal consonant and spreads its feature value to the preceding voiced obstruent transparently because of the feature [+sonorant] of the nasal consonant. The coronal nasal /n/ participates in a palatalization with the following palatal actively and palatalize preceding plain consonants passively because of markedness hierarchy such as 'Velar > Labial > Coronal'. But the labial nasal /m/ is palatalized with the following velar palatal actively and participates in a palatalization with the following coronal palatal passively. This result helps us confirm the phonological difference of /m/ and /n/ in a palatalization. When the a final consonant is nasal, the unvoicing phenomenon of a final consonant doesn't occur. In such a case as cluster 'obstruent + nasal' the feature value [voiced] of the preceding obstruent doesn't change, but the following nasal can assimilate into the preceding obstruent. When continuing the same nasals / -nn- / in a consonant cluster, the feature value [+cont] of a weak position leads the preceding nasal / n / to be changed into [-cont] / l /. Through the analysis of the frequency of occurrences of consonants in syllabic onsets and codas that should observe the 'Sonority Sequence Principle', the sonority hierarchy of nasal consonants has been confirmed. In a diachronic perspective following nasal / m /, / n / there is a loss of the preceding labial stop and dental stop. But in clusters with the velar stop+nasal, the two-component cluster has been kept phonetically intact.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.45-53
• /
• 2015

The current study investigated CVCC syllables in spontaneous American English speech to find out whether such syllables are produced as phonological units with a string of segments, showing a hierarchical structure. Transcribed data from the Buckeye Speech Corpus was used for the analysis in this study. The result of the current study showed that the constituents within a CVCC syllable as a phonological unit may have phonetic variations (namely, the final coda may undergo deletion). First, voiceless alveolar stops were the most frequently deleted when they occurred as the second final coda consonants of a CVCC syllable; this deletion may be an intermediate process on the way from the abstract form CVCC (with the rime VCC) to the actual pronunciation CVC (with the rime VC), a production strategy employed by some individual speakers. Second, in the internal structure of the rime, the proportion of deletion of the final coda consonant depended on the frequency of the word rather than on the position of postvocalic consonants on the sonority hierarchy. Finally, the segment following the consonant cluster proved to have an effect on the reduction of that cluster; more precisely, the following contrast was observed between obstruents and non-obstruents, reflecting the effect of sonority: when the segment following the consonant cluster was an obstruent, the proportion of deletion of the final coda consonant was increased. Among these results, the effect of word frequency played a critical role for promoting the deletion of the second coda consonant for clusters in CVCC syllables in spontaneous speech. The current study implies that the structure of syllables as phonological units can vary depending on individual speakers' lexical representation.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2000.07a
• /
• pp.364-364
• /
• 2000

It has been widely discussed in phonology that syllable structure of mother tongue influences one's acquisition of foreign language. However, the topic was hardly examined experimentally. So, we investigated effects of Korean syllable structure when Korean speakers pronounce English words, especially focusing on consonant strings that are not allowed in Korean. In the experiment, all the subjects are divided into 3 groups, that is, native, experienced, and inexperienced speakers. Native group consists of 1 male English native speaker. Experienced and inexperienced are each composed of 3 male Korean speakers. These 2 groups are divided by the length of residence in the country using English as a native language. 41 mono-syllable words are prepared considering the position (onset vs. coda), characteristic (stops, affricates, fricatives), and number of consonant. Then, the length of the consonant cluster is measured. To eliminate tempo effect, the measured length is normalized using the length of the word 'say' in the carrier sentence. Measurement of consonant cluster is the relative time period between the initiation of energy (onset I coda) which is acoustically representative of noise (consonant portion) and voicing. bar (vowel portion) in a syllable. Statistical method is used to estimate the differences among 3 groups. For each word, analysis of variance (ANDY A) and Post Hoc tests are carried out.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.80-84
• /
• 2006

Motivated by the fact that cluster reduction strategies such as inserting a vowel or deleting a consonant in resolving English complex clusters differ depending on studies, this paper investigates the repair strategies employed by Korean EFL students. A total of 60 college students participated in the present study and the participants' production of English voiceless word-initial and word-final clusters was measured using the materials designed for this study. It has been shown that prosodic positions such as onset and coda and the number of cluster sequences influenced cluster reduction strategies. The error rates of both insertion and deletion were noticeably higher in the coda position than in the onset position and both insertion and deletion error rates were higher in triconsonatal cluster than in biconsonantal cluster sequences. Overall, the insertion rate was higher than the deletion rate. However, the deletion rate was significantly higher than the insertion rate in triconsonantal coda cluster sequences. Because of this, the deletion rate was higher than the insertion rate for triconsonantal cluster sequences across onset and coda. Also, the high deletion rate of triconsonantal coda clusters contributed to the high deletion rate for the coda clusters in general.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.127-138
• /
• 2000

The aim of this paper is to find the speech problems of English Laterals by Korean learners and to contribute to the effective pronunciation education with visualizing the pronunciation. In this paper we analyzed 18 words including lateral sounds which were divided into such as: initial, initial consonant cluster, intervocalic, final consonant cluster, and final. To analyse the words we used High speed speech analysis system. We examined acoustic characteristics of English lateral spectrogram by using voice sustained time(ms), FL1, FL2, FL3. Before we started, we had expected that the result would show us that the mother tongue interfere in the final sounds because we have similar sounds in Korea. The results of our experiments showed that initially, voice sustained time showed many more differences between Korean and native pronunciation. Also, it was seen that Korean pronunciation used the syllable structure of the own mother tongue. For instance, in the case of initial consonant cluster CCVC, Koreans often used CC as a syllable and VC as another. This was due to the mother tongue interference. For this reason in the intervocalic and in the final, we saw the differences between Korean and native. Therefore we have to accept the visualized analysis system in the instruction of pronunciation.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2006.05a
• /
• pp.55-58
• /
• 2006

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of postvocalic consonant cluster (Contrasting nasal-stops consonant with stops) on vowel duration. In particular we focused on the rate of vowel duration in their words. (Experimental I ) and the tendency of unreleased voiceless stops at the end of the words.(Experimental II). The result of experimental I showed that the rate of vowel duration which is preceding single voiceless stops are significantly longer than those preceding nasal-stops counterparts and the percentage of English native speakers was longer than those of Korean leaners of English Experiment II indicated that the tendency of unreleased stop consonants occurred more frequently on single voiceless stops than nasal-stop clusters and Korean learners of English were more frequently produced the unreleased stops than English natives.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.33-40
• /
• 2009

This study examines how young speakers of Seoul Korean produce tri-consonantal clusters /1kt/ and /1pt/ as in palk-ta ('to be bright') and palp-ta ('to step on'). Production data were collected from 20 speakers of Seoul Korean. The results of narrow transcription of the data showed that simplification is not obligatory as some speakers often preserve all three consonants. When simplified, there was a clear asymmetry between /1kt/ and /1pt/. Speakers showed no clear preference for either C1 preservation (C1=/1/) or C2 preservation (C2=/k/ in /1kt/ and /p/ in /1pt/) in production of /1kt/, but in production of /1pt/, strong preference was found for C1-preserved to C2-preserved variant. When compared with production data in Cho (1999), simplification patterns appear to have changed over the past 10 years, in a direction to preserve the first member of the cluster (/1/) more often, especially with /1kt/. There was no substantial between-item variation, indicating that simplification patterns are not lexically specified. Finally, the results suggest that the process of tri-consonantal simplification has not been fully phonologized in the grammar of the language as evident in substantial inter- and intra-speaker variation.