한국영어학회지:영어학 (Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics)
- 제3권3호
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- Pages.427-452
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- 2003
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- 1598-1398(pISSN)
The Phonetic Difference Between the Korean Stop Series /p,t,k/ and the English /b,d,g/ Based on the VOT Value
초록
Korean is famous for having all voiceless stop sounds. Korean does have voiced stops but they are considered to exist only as the allophones of word initial /p, t, k/. My experiment shows the English word initial stop sounds [b, d, g] and the Korean lax stop series /p, t, k/ in word initial position are similar in the range of voice onset time. If English word initial[b, d, g] sounds are posited as voiced, then Korean word initial /p, t, k/ should be classified as voiced also. Phonetically English /b, d, g/ phonemes and Korean /p, t, k/ phonemes are very similar except the word initial [p, t, k] are devoiced slightly more, but not significant enough to be classified as voiceless than English word initial [b, d, g]. If we posit /b, d, g/ as Korean phonemes, it explains why Korean /p, t, k/ series has the allophones [b, d, g] instead of fortis stops /p', t', k'/ in Korean even though /p', t', k'/ has less positive VOT value than /p, t, k/. If we posit /b, d, g/ as Korean phonemes, then it does not cause spelling or pronunciation confusion either when Koreans learn English or English speakers learn Korean.