• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.201-214
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• 2002

In the Japanese language, there is a phonological contrast between not only initial stops, but also non initial in voiced and voiceless sounds. But in the Korean language, voiced sounds do not appear in the initial. Due to this, pronunciation of voiced sounds in the initial will be difficult for Korean. Through this research, I analyzed the minimal pairs by voiced/voiceless sounds of Japanese and Korean, and perception experiment in which Japanese listened to Korean speakers' pronunciations. Japanese pronunciations showed distinct acoustic differences between voiced and voiceless stops, especially in VOT. The duration of vowels after voiced stops was longer than that of voiceless ones. Vowel pitches after voiceless stops were higher. On the other hands, Korean showed three patterns of voiced sounds. There were-VOT values as native speakers, +VOT, and nasal formant tended to occur before prenasalized stops. Koreans pronounced voiceless sounds in strong aspirated, unaspirated, or tense sounds. Finally, Japanese judged sounds with not only -VOT values and prenasalized, but also with +VOT values as voiced. This suggests that we may not consider VOT values as the unique feature of voicing, and that such other phonetic characteristics as the following vowel lengthening should be included here.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.89-95
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• 2015

We explored Dutch listeners' perception of Korean three-way contrast of fortis, lenis, and aspirated stops. The three Korean stops are all voiceless word-initially, whereas Dutch distinguishes between voiced and voiceless stops, so Korean voiceless stops were expected to be difficult for the Dutch listeners. Among the three Korean stops, fortis stops are phonetically most similar to Dutch voiceless stops, thus they were expected to be the easiest to distinguish for the Dutch listeners. Dutch and Korean listeners carried out a discrimination task using three crucial comparisons, i.e., fortis-lenis, fortis-aspirated, and lenis-aspirated stops. Results showed that discrimination between lenis and aspirated stops was the most difficult among the three comparisons for both Dutch and Korean listeners. As expected, Dutch listeners discriminated fortis from the other stops relatively accurately. It seems likely that Dutch listeners relied heavily on VOT but less on F0 when discriminating between the three Korean stops.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.9-17
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• 2021

Voice onset time (VOT) is known to be a primary acoustic cue that differentiates voiced from voiceless stops in the world's languages. While much attention has been given to the sound change of Korean stops, little attention has been given to that of English stops. This study examines VOT of stop consonants as produced by English speakers in comparison to Korean speakers to see whether there is any VOT change for English stops and how the effects of stop, place, gender, and individual on VOT differ cross-linguistically. A total of 24 native speakers (11 Americans and 13 Koreans) participated in this experiment. The results showed that, for Korean, the VOT merger of lax and aspirated stops was replicated, and, for English, voiced stops became initially devoiced and voiceless stops became heavily aspirated. English voiceless stops became longer in VOT than Korean counterparts. The results suggest that, similar to Korean stops, English stops may also undergo a sound change. Since it is the first study to be revealed, more convincing evidence is necessary.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.55-58
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• 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
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.57-63
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• 2009

The two specific research questions pursued in this paper are: (i) how Korean speakers perceive Hindi stops in terms of the three laryngeal categories of Korean stops; (ii) how well Korean speakers do with an ABX perception test that utilizes a total of 52 Hindi minimal pairs where all sounds are identical except for the laryngeal features of a stop in each word. A total of 45 university students participated in this experiment. The results showed that (i) Koreans tended to perceive Hindi voiceless unaspirated stops as Korean fortis ones, voiceless aspirated stops as aspirated ones, voiced stops as lenis ones, and breathy stops as aspirated ones, and (ii) Koreans had difficulty in distinguishing between voiceless aspirated and breathy stops in Hindi.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.175-185
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate the acoustic durations of Korean vowels followed by either voiced or voiceless consonants. Six healthy adult speakers (2 females and 4 males) recorded nonsense syllables in which voiced (/b, d, g/) or voiceless (/p', t', k', $p^{h},t^{h},k^{h}$) consonants follow three different vowels (/i, a, u/) embedded in a carrier phrase. Results showed that vowels preceding voiced consonants (e.g., haba) were significantly longer in duration than those preceding voiceless consonants (e.g., hiP' a or $hip^{h}a$). Also vowels were longer in duration when occurring before velar-stops than before bilabial-stop and dental-stops. Finally, the duration of the low vowel (/a/) was substantially longer than that of the high vowels (/i, u/). These findings may be applicable to speech synthesis or therapy.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.31-41
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• 2012

Recent studies have shown that the stop system of Korean is undergoing a sound change in terms of the two acoustic parameters, voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (f0). Because of a VOT merger of a consonantal opposition and onset-f0 interaction, the relative importance of the two parameters has been changing in Korean where f0 is a primary cue and VOT is a secondary cue in distinguishing lax from aspirated stops in speech production as well as perception. In English, however, VOT is a primary cue and f0 is a secondary cue in contrasting voiced and voiceless stops. This study examines how Korean English learners use the two acoustic parameters of L1 in producing L2 English stops and whether the sound change of acoustic parameters in L1 affects L2 speech production. The data were collected from six adult Korean English learners. Results show that Korean English learners use not only VOT but also f0 to contrast L2 voiced and voiceless stops. However, unlike VOT variations among speakers, the magnitude effect of onset consonants on f0 in L2 English was steady and robust, indicating that f0 also plays an important role in contrasting the [voice] contrast in L2 English. The results suggest that the important role of f0 in contrasting lax and aspirated stops in L1 Korean is transferred to the contrast of voiced and voiceless stops in L2 English. The results imply that, for Korean English learners, f0 rather than VOT will play an important perceptual cue in contrasting voiced and voiceless stops in L2 English.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2000

Theoretically, alaryngeal speakers have difficulty in accomplishing the production of voiceless consonants. However, the perceptual studies often reveal a clear production of voiceless consonants giving good articulation scores in skilled alaryngeal speakers. The purpose of the present study was to clarify the production of voiceless stops in mode of articulation to normal speakers and skilled alaryngeal speakers. The acoustic characteristics of alaryngeal speech compared to the normal speech were investigated with special reference to the voiceless stop consonants. The surface electromyography from neck is used to monitor pharyngeal activity during speech. The general result is. that esophageal, shunt and neoglottal speakers realize the distinctions between the three types of [p] in a manner parallel to normals, whereas those using an electric voice generator do not.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.17-26
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• 1999

It has been claimed that Korean mid-vocalic voiceless unaspirated lax stops are phonetically realized with voicing throughout the oral closure phase. Acoustic measurements were undertaken to examine the claim with four Korean native speakers using /$V_1CV_2$/ words where the vowel ($V_1\;=\;V_2$) was /i, a, u/ and the C was voiceless unaspirated lax stops /p, t, k/. Findings: (1) During mid-vocalic stops /k/ and /p/ the vowel /u/ was accompanied generally by a significant increase in voice cessation time as percentage of the oral closure interval (PCT) than the vowel /a/, regardless of subjects, whereas in mid-vocalic alveolar stop /t/ the effects of vowels on PCT were subject-dependent, (2) The effects of vowels on PCT were significantly greater in mid-vocalic /k/ than /p/, regardless of subjects, (3) The mean PCT, averaged across six tokens, ranged from 17% to100%, giving overall mean 61% in which the standard deviation was ${\pm}30$, and (4) Overall % of the total of mid-vocalic unaspirated lax stops were produced with a substantial period of devocing and voicing lag. Considering these results, it is difficult to agree with the existing claims that Korean voiceless unaspirated lax stops are phonetically realized with voicing throughout the oral closure phase. Other phonetic variables, including the durations of pre/post-stop vowels, voice onset time, voice cessation time, and the duration of oral closure, were measured.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2002

Phonologically, the difference between the English stops /b, d, g/ and /p, t, k/ is carried by the presence or the absence of the vocal fold vibration throughout their oral closure phase. If phonology has its foundation in phonetics, there must be phonetic evidence for the voiced-voiceless distinction. This study is aimed to determine whether or not the voiced-voiceless distinction is acceptable or proper in English. The determination was based mainly on findings in the existing literature and in informal experiments. In conclusion, there is no phonetic evidence for the voiced-voiceless distinction both in production and perception. The [voice] appears to be one of potential phonetic correlates of the phonologically voiced stop. It is improper to use the [voice] as independent phonological marker, regardless of position (word-initial, intervocalic, word-final). A feature other than the voiced-voiceless feature must distinguish /b, d, g/ from /p, t, k/.