• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.39
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• pp.381-406
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• 2015

Russian nasal consonants / m /, / n / have a feature value not only [+consonant] in common with obstruents, but also [+sonorant] in common with vowels. Nasal / m /(bi-labial) and / n /(dental) have the same place of articulation but different manner of articulation. The feature value of / m / is [+cons, +son, +nas, +ant, -cor, -high, -low, -back, -cont, -del, rel, -strid, +voic], and that of / n / is [+cons, +son, +nas, +ant, +cor, -high, -low, -back, -cont, -del, rel, -strid, + voic]. There is a difference in feature [cor] value of / m / and / n /. In this study it is confirmed that it is a fact that the Russian nasal consonants behave differently from the other consonants in each phonological phenomenon due to their phonological characteristics. The preceding voiced obstruent is changed to an unvoiced one in a process where the last voiceless obstruent in the consonant cluster ' voiced obstruent + nasal /m/ + voiceless obstruent' skips the nasal consonant and spreads its feature value to the preceding voiced obstruent transparently because of the feature [+sonorant] of the nasal consonant. The coronal nasal /n/ participates in a palatalization with the following palatal actively and palatalize preceding plain consonants passively because of markedness hierarchy such as 'Velar > Labial > Coronal'. But the labial nasal /m/ is palatalized with the following velar palatal actively and participates in a palatalization with the following coronal palatal passively. This result helps us confirm the phonological difference of /m/ and /n/ in a palatalization. When the a final consonant is nasal, the unvoicing phenomenon of a final consonant doesn't occur. In such a case as cluster 'obstruent + nasal' the feature value [voiced] of the preceding obstruent doesn't change, but the following nasal can assimilate into the preceding obstruent. When continuing the same nasals / -nn- / in a consonant cluster, the feature value [+cont] of a weak position leads the preceding nasal / n / to be changed into [-cont] / l /. Through the analysis of the frequency of occurrences of consonants in syllabic onsets and codas that should observe the 'Sonority Sequence Principle', the sonority hierarchy of nasal consonants has been confirmed. In a diachronic perspective following nasal / m /, / n / there is a loss of the preceding labial stop and dental stop. But in clusters with the velar stop+nasal, the two-component cluster has been kept phonetically intact.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.223-232
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• 2004

This study investigated and compared the acoustic characteristics of the Korean stop sound [k'] in three different phonological environments: the tensified lenis stop [k'] as observed in /prek+kaci/, the fortis stop /k'/ as in /pre+k'aci/, and the fortis stop /k'/ following an obstruent as in /prek+k'aci/. The specific research question was whether or not the tensified lenis stop shares all the acoustic features with the other two kinds of fortis stops. The acoustic measures adopted in this study were H1*-H2*, VOT, length of stop closure, and $F_0$. The major findings were that the three stops showed no significant difference in all the acoustic measures except the length of stop closure. The fortis stop /k'/ following an obstruent showed significantly longer duration of stop closure than the other two stops, both of which showed no significant difference. Based on these phonetic results, this study argued that, for the proper phonological description of post-obstruent tensification, the phonological feature [slack vocal folds] of a lenis stop should be changed into [stiff vocal folds, constricted glottis] that the fortis stops should have.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2011

The present study reports the results of an acoustic study of nasal assimilation at word boundaries in Chinese-Korean interlanguage. Twelve Chinese learners of Korean and four Korean native speakers recorded obstruent#nasal sequences in noun compounds and verb phrases, and their different production patterns were examined in detail. While nasalization of the word-final obstruents occurred only in 11.7% of the obstruent#nasal sequences for the Chinese learners, the Korean native speakers showed complete nasalization of those sequences. However, there was small, but consistent effect of learning on the production of external sandhi in L2, because there were shown to be differences in the rate of nasalization between the two proficiency groups of Chinese participants. On average, the intermediate level learners nasalized the target stops at the rate of 16%, and the beginning level learners showed the 7% nasalization rate. In addition, it was found that the context difference such as noun compounds versus verb phrases does not influence the nasalization pattern across word boundaries.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1193-1220
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• 2009

This study examined the impact of sonority profiles, positional differences and L2 proficiency on Korean EFL learners' perception of English biconsonantal clusters, using nonce words. The overall results showed that major predictions of the sonority-based typological markedness on consonant clusters were supported, as obstruent plus sonorant and sonorant plus obstruent sequences were better perceived than obstruent only or sonorant only sequences. Yet, some consonant clusters did not show a preference for sonority profiles. Positional effects were also confirmed, as word-initial biconsonantal clusters were better perceived than wordfinal ones across all the participant groups. Participants' English proficiency turned out to be also important in the perception of consonant clusters, since university students' mean rate of accuracy was highest, followed by that of high school students, which in turn followed by that of middle school students. Further, the effects of other factors like frequency and stimuli on speech perception were also addressed, along with some implications for future research.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.482-487
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• 1996

Korean fortis consonant is not included in the consonantal inventory, but a result of phonetic implementation at the phonetic level, P. With the framework of Cognitive Phonology, a construction of Post Obstruent Tensification is proposed in such a way that rule-ordering is eliminated. This enables us to overcome methodological problems raised in former analyses of fortis under geminate hypothesis, and give a uniform account for three categories of fortis consonants. By assuming extrasyllabicity of verb-stem-final, consonant neutralization of fortis in the coda position is explained by the invisibility at the P-level. and, therefore. modification of Coda Neutralization rule is called for.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.9-17
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• 2017

The aim of this study is to examine whether Chinese Korean learners (CKL) can correctly produce the aspiration in 'a lenis obstruents /k/, /t/, /p/, /ʧ/+/h/ sound' sequence at the lexical and post-lexical level. For this purpose 4 Korean native speakers (KNS), 10 advanced and 10 intermediate CKL participated in a production test. The material analyzed consisted of 10 Korean sentences in which aspiration can be applied at different prosodic boundaries (syllable, word, accentual phrase). The results showed that for KNS and CKL, the rate of application of aspiration was different according to prosodic boundaries. Aspiration was more frequently applied at the lexical level than at the post-lexical level and it was more frequent at the word boundary than at the accentual phrase boundary. For CKL, pronunciation errors were either non-application of aspiration or coda obstruent omission. In the case of non-application of aspiration, CKL produced the target syllable as an underling form and they did not transform it as a surface form. In the case of coda obstruent ommision, most of the errors were caused by the inherent complexity of phonological process.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.29-35
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• 2011

This paper examines several articulatory properties of /k/, known as a trigger of place assimilation as well as the object of post-obstruent tensing (/tk/), in comparison to non-assimilating controls (/kk/ and /kt/). Using EMMA, tongue body articulation in the place assimilation context robustly shows greater spatio-temporal articulation and lower jaw position. Results showed several characteristics. Firstly, constriction duration of the tongue body gesture in C2 of the assimilation context (/tk/) was longer than non-assimilating controls (/kk/ and /kt/). Secondly, constriction maxima also demonstrated greater constriction in the /tk/ sequences than in the control /kk/, but similar values with the control /kt/. In particular, results showed a significant relationship between the two variables - the longer the constriction duration, the greater the constriction degree. Lastly, jaw height was lower for the assimilating context /tk/, intermediate for the control /kk/, and higher for the control /kt/. Results suggest that speakers have lexical knowledge of place assimilation, producing a greater tongue body gesture in the spatio-temporal domains with lower jaw height as an indication of anticipating reduction of C1 in /tk/ sequences.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.51-70
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• 2009

This study focuses on the asymmetrical realization of homorganic nasal-obstruent stop clusters in English when they occur word medially and word finally. This uneven realization of NC clusters is not only controlled by the place of articulation of the cluster constituents but also by the agreement of voicing feature specifications of the cluster elements. We propose context-sensitive constraints, which are more specified versions than *NC (Pater, 1996, 1999, 2004). The result of the study reveals that homorganic NC clusters consisting of coronal place feature are faithfully realized word finally while they are constrained word medially. The deletion of voiceless post-nasal coronal stop should be considered a new language specific strategy to avoid *NC.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.719-744
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• 2009

This paper aims to reexamine Homorganic Cluster Lengthening in Late Old English whereby OE short vowels became lengthened before specific consonant clusters such as /-ld, -nd, -mb, -rd, -rð, -ng, -rz/. As for the motivation for this apparently odd-looking sound change, I propose that it was the result of phonologization of the phonetic lengthening of syllables containing resonants homorganic with a following voiced obstruent. Adopting Luick's (1898) view of "resonant+voiced homorganic obstruent" phonologically as a single coda, I show that Homorganic Cluster Lengthening is in fact a natural sound change that can be explained with the proper postulation of a few quantity-related universal constraints within the framework of the Optimality Theory. The fact that the constraints and their ranking as posited in this paper can also account for Pre-Cluster Shortening points to the validity of my approach in the analysis of other quantity changes in Middle English.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.27
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• pp.497-523
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• 2012

Characteristics of the Listening and Pronunciation of Korean Obstruents of Chinese Learners -Based on the Phonetic Experiments Using Kalvin and Praat- This study aims at investigating the characteristics of confrontation in three ways, lax/ fortis/ aspirated consonants, in Korean obstruents through experimental phonetic analysis for the Chinese Korean language learners. On one hand, as a result of comparing Korean and Chinese obstruent systems, there is no big difference regarding the articulatory location. On the other hand, in regards to the articulatory method there is a difference. In a Korean obstruent system, the confrontation presented in three ways by the strength of aspiration. On the contrary, the Chinese obstruent system showed confrontation in two ways by the existence of aspiration. To examine the difficulty of the learners caused by the above-mentioned reason objectively, this paper studied the relationship between input and output of sound through the experimental phonetic analysis such as Kalvin and Praat. To research the input of sound, the listening ability of the learners was examined by 'Choosing Consonant' among the Menu of Kalvin. As a result of that experiment, many errors were shown. They recognized the fortis as lax in the area of affricates and plosives. In the area of fricatives, they recognized affricatives as fricatives. To investigate the output of sound, the section of aspiration and the section of friction of a plosive, an affricate and a fricative in Praat, were expressed numerically. The learners' VOT of lax and affricate represented that lax was pronounced close to the fortis, and the VOT of fricatives was not shown the section of aspiration and friction clearly, and also the result showed that they pronounced a fricative like affricative-aspirated one. The result shows that the learners' pronunciation is related to the listening ability. The consequence is caused by the characteristics of the difference between Korean obstruents and Chinese ones. If the training pronunciation is conducted based on above result, it would be a better methodology in teaching Korean.