An Acoustical Study of Labiovelar Glide /w/ Followed by Labials

양순음 후행 양순전이음 /w/의 음향음성학적 연구

The well-known tendency to delete the labiovelar glide /w/ in some special conditions in Korean was based on perceptual judgment. Among the studies which tried to identify this phenomenon, Silva(1991) and Kang(1997) discovered the important factors of /w/-deletion and tried to give phonological explanations in terms of the Obligatory Contour Principle (McCarthy 1986). This study uses acoustic experiments in order to examine the reality of this phenomenon and tries to explain it on the basis of spectrographic analysis. According to the experiment, it is observed that /w/ is neutralized rather than completely deleted. Therefore, this observation suggests that this phenomena be considered as the /w/-neutralization in the view of acoustic study, instead of the /w/-deletion.