Effects of age, sex, context, and lexicality on hyperarticulation of Korean fricatives

Seoul Korean is known for a rare three-way laryngeal contrast among lenis, fortis, and aspirated voiceless stops, which has recently undergone a change in phonetic implementation: whereas older speakers rely more on voice onset time (VOT) to distinguish lenis and aspirated stops, younger speakers rely more on onset fundamental frequency (f 0) in the following vowel. This production difference is reflected in disparate strategies for enhancing the contrast in clear speech, supporting the view that younger and older speakers represent the three laryngeal categories differently in terms of VOT and f 0 targets (Kang & Guion, 2008). In the current study, we used the clear speech paradigm to test for change in the representation of the two-way contrast between fortis (/s*/) and non-fortis (/s/) fricatives. Native Seoul Korean speakers (n = 32), representing two generations and both sexes, were recorded producing the coronal stops and fricatives in different vowel contexts, item types (real vs. nonce words), and speech registers (plain citation vs. clear). We report acoustic data on how the above factors influence production of the fricative contrast and discuss implications for the phonological categorization of non-fortis /s/ as lenis, aspirated, or a hybrid lenis-aspirated category.https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1_NoAiLQlnkZ2RtdEtuYTlaMkkOthe

The production and perception of coronal fricatives in Seoul Korean: The case for a fourth laryngeal category

This article presents new data on the contrast between the two voiceless coronal fricatives of Korean, variously described as a lenis/fortis or aspirated/fortis contrast. In utterance-initial position, the fricatives were found to differ in centroid frequency; duration of frication, aspiration, and the following vowel; and several aspects of the following vowel onset, including intensity profile, spectral tilt, and F1 onset. The between-fricative differences varied across vowel contexts, however, and spectral differences in the vowel onset especially were more pronounced for /a/ than for /i, ɯ, u/. This disparity led to the hypothesis that cues in the following vowel onset would exert a weaker influence on perception for high vowels than for low vowels. Perception data provided general support for this hypothesis, indicating that while vowel onset cues had the largest impact on perception for both high- and low-vowel stimuli, this influence was weaker for high vowels. Perception was also strongly influenced by aspiration duration, with modest contributions from frication duration and f0 onset. Taken together, these findings suggest that the 'non-fortis' fricative is best characterized not in terms of the lenis or aspirated categories for stops, but in terms of a unique representation that is both lenis and aspirated

Acoustic cues for the korean stop contrast-dialectal variation

In this study, cross-dialectal variation in the use of the acoustic cues of VOT and F0 to mark the laryngeal contrast in Korean stops is examined with Chonnam Korean and Seoul Korean. Prior experimental results (Han & Weitzman, 1970; Hardcastle, 1973; Jun, 1993 &1998; Kim, C., 1965) show that pitch values in the vowel onset following the target stop consonants play a supplementary role to VOT in designating the three contrastive laryngeal categories. F0 contours are determined in part by the intonational system of a language, which raises the question of how the intonational system interacts with phonological contrasts. Intonational difference might be linked to dissimilar patterns in using the complementary acoustic cues of VOT and F0. This hypothesis is tested with 6 Korean speakers, three Seoul Korean and three Chonnam Korean speakers. The results show that Chonnam Korean involves more 3-way VOT and a 2-way distinction in F0 distribution in comparison to Seoul Korean that shows more 3-way F0 distribution and a 2-way VOT distinction. The two acoustic cues are complementary in that one cue is rather faithful in marking 3-way contrast, while the other cue marks the contrast less distinctively. It also seems that these variations are not completely arbitrary, but linked to the phonological characteristics in dialects. Chonnam Korean, in which the initial tonal realization in the accentual phrase is expected to be more salient, tends to minimize the F0 perturbation effect from the preceding consonants by taking more overlaps in F0 distribution. And a 3-way distribution of VOT in Chonnam Korean, as compensation, can be also understood as a durational sensitivity. Without these characteristics, Seoul Korean shows relatively more overlapping distribution in VOT and more 3-way separation in F0 distribution

세대에 따른 한국어 화자의 외국어 어두 유성 폐쇄음 지각 변화

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 인문대학 언어학과, 2021.8. 장현정.This study aims to investigate how Korean speakers perceive foreign unaspirated voiceless and voiced stops, and how the mechanisms of stop perception differ across generations. Contemporary Seoul Korean speakers tend to utilize fundamental frequency (f₀) of the following vowel as the primary cue for perceiving lenis stops, while older generations relied more on voice onset time (VOT). In the lenis and aspirated stop perception, f₀ and VOT were also observed to trade off. In this study, a perception and mapping test was conducted with 20 teenage subjects and 20 senior subjects to determine if the cue trade-off and the changing tendency with respect to cue-weighting, observed in Korean speakers native voiceless stop perception, are also present in their foreign voiced stop perception. The results indicate that younger listeners do perceive foreign voiced stops differently from the older listeners. Consistent with their native stop perception, the teenage subjects utilized f₀ more actively as a cue when perceiving word-initial unaspirated voiceless and voiced stops. The trend towards increased f₀-dependency seems to be consistent across native and foreign stops with or without aspiration or prevoicing. However, the f₀-VOT trade-off observed in previous studies on Korean speakers voiceless stop perception was not found to be replicated in this experiment with stimuli with near-zero to negative VOT values. For Korean speakers, whose native language lacks voicing contrasts in stop consonants at word-initial positions, negative and positive VOT in word-initial stop consonants may not serve equally well as a cue.이 연구는 지각 실험을 통해 한국어 화자의 어두 무기 유·무성음 지각 기제와 그 변화 양상을 밝히고자 한다. 서울말 화자가 어두 예사소리를 구분할 때, 과거에는 성대 진동 시작 시간(VOT)이 더 주요한 단서였으나 최근에는 후행 모음의 기본 주파수(f₀)가 더 적극적으로 활용된다. 거센소리와 예사소리 지각에서는 f₀와 VOT의 트레이드오프(trade-off) 관계가 보고되기도 했다. 이 연구에서는 한국어 화자의 어두 무성 폐쇄음 지각 양상에서 보이는 단서 트레이드오프와 단서 비중 변화가 유성 폐쇄음 지각에서도 나타나는지 살펴보기 위해 10대 청소년 화자와 70대 노인 화자를 대상으로 청취 실험을 시행해, 외국어 어두 무기 유·무성음 인지에서 세대 차가 있음을 밝혔다. 젊은 한국어 화자는 외국어 유·무성 폐쇄음을 인지할 때 이전 세대보다 후행 모음의 f₀를 더 적극적으로 활용하며, 이는 이들의 모어 무성 폐쇄음 인지 기제와 일치한다. 한국어 화자의 어두 폐쇄음 지각에서 f₀의 단서 비중 확대는 기식성이나 성대 진동 여부, 모어와 외국어 소리에 상관없이 두루 나타나는 것으로 보인다. 한국어 화자의 모어 무성 유·무기 폐쇄음 지각에서 관찰되었던 VOT와 f₀ 간 트레이드오프는 외국어 무기 유·무성음 폐쇄음 지각에서는 관찰되지 않았다. 모어의 어두 폐쇄음에서 유·무성 대립이 나타나지 않는 한국어 화자의 폐쇄음 지각 기제에서, 음수 VOT는 양수 VOT와 다른 성격을 지니는 것으로 보인다.1. Introduction 7 2. Experiment 13 2.1. Stimuli 13 2.1.1. Characteristics 16 2.1.2. Manipulation 23 2.2. Subjects 27 2.3. Methods 28 2.3.1. Experiment design 28 2.3.2. Performance 31 3. Results 32 3.1. VOT contrasts 32 3.1.1. Young listeners 33 3.1.2. Senior listeners 37 3.2. f₀ contrasts 41 3.2.1. Young listeners 42 3.2.2. Senior listeners 49 3.3. Correlations 55 4. Conclusion 56 References 59석

An acoustic and aerodynamic study of stops in tonal and non-tonal dialects of Korean

ABSTRACT This study investigates the acoustic and aerodynamic properties of well&ndashknown three&ndashway distinction of Korean voiceless stops in two dialects, which differ in their tonal systems: non&ndashtonal Seoul Korean (standard Korean) and tonal South Kyungsang Korean (spoken in Southern part of Korea). Several issues are addressed in the current study: (i) the acoustic cues (e.g. VOT, f0, H1&ndashH2) that each dialect mainly uses to distinguish the three Korean stops, (ii) the effect of f0 as a function of distinguishing three stop categories and as a function of distinguishing the High vs. Low tonal contrasts in the tonal South Kyungsang dialect, (iii) dialectal variation in aerodynamic area (e.g., oral airflow, oral air pressure) as well as acoustic area. These issues are examined with 16 Korean speakers, eight Seoul Korean and eight South Kyungsang Korean speakers. Along with the results replicating previous findings, the experimental results report several noteworthy new findings. First, the acoustic and aerodynamic pattern differently in the two dialects; Seoul speakers primarily use f0 as an acoustic cue for three laryngeal gestures of Korean stops, while South Kyungsang speakers are more likely to use VOT as a main acoustic cue. Second, the use of tonal contrasts to distinguish High vs. Low tone for South Kyungsang speakers makes f0 an unreliable acoustic cue for the three Korean stops. Third, the dialectal differences on VOT to mark the three laryngeal distinctions support the notion of the diachronic transition that the VOT difference between the lenis and aspirated stops is decreasing over the past 50 years. Finally, the results of aerodynamic study make it possible to postulate the articulatory state. Hence, based on the acoustic and aerodynamic results, this study suggests the possible phonological representations in the two dialects which differ in their tonal systems

Korean lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops: Effect of place of articulation on acoustic realization

Unlike most of the world's languages, Korean distinguishes three types of voiceless stops, namely lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops. All occur at three places of articulation. In previous work, acoustic measurements are mostly collapsed over the three places of articulation. This study therefore provides acoustic measurements of Korean lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops at all three places of articulation separately. Clear differences are found among the acoustic characteristics of the stops at the different places of articulatio

The laryngeal properties of Slovak three-consonant clusters

In this paper, we study the phonetic properties of three-consonant clusters (CC#C) in Slovak. More precisely, we will investigate the laryngeal properties of the velar–alveolar stop clusters /kt/ and /ɡd/, and the alveolar fricative– stop clusters /st/ and /zd/ in word-final position when followed by a voiced or a voiceless obstruent, or a sonorant consonant. This topic is of interest for two reasons: (i) there are not many studies dealing with the laryngeal characteristics of three-consonant clusters, and (ii) the study of consonant clusters can shed further light on the issue whether or not regressive voicing assimilation (RVA) in general, including pre-sonorant voicing, is a neutralizing process in Slovak. We will seek to answer the following research questions: (i) Is voicing assimilation in Slovak (with obstruent and sonorant consonants as triggers) neutralizing or incomplete? (ii) Does pre-sonorant voicing in Slovak differ from pre-obstruent voicing? (iii) Is the word-final devoicing of obstruent clusters a completely neutralizing process in Slovak, or is it an example of incomplete laryngeal neutralization

Routes to Lenition: An Acoustic Study

BACKGROUND: Vowel lenition and its link with coarticulation have been the subject of extensive debate in the literature. The aims of the present paper are to demonstrate how vowel lenition and coarticulation are linked in Cypriot Greek (henceforth CG), to determine the nature of vowel lenition, and to illustrate how vowel lenition and coarticulation result from aerodynamic phenomena. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Eight speakers were recorded producing utterances ending in either /i/ or /u/. Acoustic measures such as V(1)F2 and stop duration were employed to determine whether lenition of the vowels results in coarticulation with the preceding consonant. Results show that there is extensive stop-vowel coarticulation in CG and that stop production is as variable as vowel production, with full vowels never co-occurring with canonical consonants, indicating the existence of two routes to lenition in CG. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest that lenition in the final syllable is a consequence of the supralaryngeal articulation coupled with a marginal glottal setting

VOT merger and f0 contrast in Heritage Korean in California

Recordings of read speech in Korean and English were made by native South Koreans and Korean Americans of varying generational status ( second-generation American-born or 1.5-generation foreign-born) and analyzed for differences in usage of VOT and fundamental frequency to contrast production of Korean lenis and aspirated stops and affricates. Results show that second-generation Korean speakers, especially females, are not showing the collapse of VOT contrast found in the other two groups, which is part of a sound change nearing completion in Seoul. Female second-generation speakers are also not using f0 to differentiate between the stops to the extent that first- and 1.5-generation speakers are. It is concluded that second generation Korean Americans are not participating in the sound change that their same-age peers in Seoul are, and that second generation and 1.5 generation Korean Americans do not pattern together phonologically as a heritage speaker category. The analysis makes a stronger case for applying new models of language acquisition, speech production, and identity formation to heritage language speakers that differ from those used for bilingual speakers