The Movements of Vocal Folds during Voice Onset Time of Korean Stops

Voice onset time (VOT) is defined as the time interval from the oral release of a stop consonant to the onset of glottal pulsing in the following vowel. VOT is a temporal characteristic of stop consonants that reflects the complex timing of glottal articulation relative to supraglottal articulation. There have been many reports on efforts to clarify the acoustical and physiological properties that differentiate the three types of Korean stops, including acoustic, fiberscopic, aerodynamic and electromyographic studies. In the acoustic and fiberscopic studies for stop consonants, the voice onset time and glottal width during the production of stops has been known as the longest and largest in the heavily aspirated type followed by the slightly aspirated type and unaspirated types. The thyroarytenoid and posterior cricoarytenoid muscles were physiologically inter-correlated for differentiating these types of stops. However, a review of the English literature shows that the fine movement of the mucosal edges of the vocal folds during the production of stops has not been well documented. In recent. years, a new method for high-speed recording of laryngeal dynamics by use of a digital recording system allows us to observe with fine time resolution. The movements of the vocal fold edges were documented during the period of stop production using a fiberscopic system of high speed digital images. By observing the glottal width and the visual vibratory movements of the vocal folds before voice onset, the heavily aspirated stop was characterized as being more prominent and dynamic than the slightly aspirated and unaspirated stops.