• Acta Via Serica
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.85-102
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• 2018

This study aims to contrast phonological characteristics of Korean and Turkish in terms of language universality. Considering consonants, both languages have the same number of consonants (21), which is the most typologically plausible structure of consonants. Thus, it can be said that they display high universality in the number of consonants. However, Turkish shows higher universality in regards to their substance, i.e., it differs from Korean when it comes to the structure of plosives and affricates. Turkish has two contrastive consonants, i.e., voiced and voiceless. However, the Korean plosives and affricates consist of neutral, tense and aspirate voiceless. In the case of vowels, both Korean with 10 vowels and Turkish with 8 vowels show lower universality. Yet, all of those vowels belong to the list of the most plausible vowels which makes their universality higher in substance. In respect of the syllable structure, Korean with its (C)V(C) type shows a moderately complex structure while Turkish with its (C)V(C)(C) type has a complex structure. The coda may consist of two consonants in Turkish while only one consonant is possible in Korean. However, onset is composed of one consonant in both languages. The contrastive study of similarities and differences between Korean and Turkish in terms of phonological characteristics will help not only understand the two languages but also provide useful information to increase the efficacy of Korean language education for Turkish learners of Korean, whose number is rapidly increasing.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.45-53
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• 2015

The current study investigated CVCC syllables in spontaneous American English speech to find out whether such syllables are produced as phonological units with a string of segments, showing a hierarchical structure. Transcribed data from the Buckeye Speech Corpus was used for the analysis in this study. The result of the current study showed that the constituents within a CVCC syllable as a phonological unit may have phonetic variations (namely, the final coda may undergo deletion). First, voiceless alveolar stops were the most frequently deleted when they occurred as the second final coda consonants of a CVCC syllable; this deletion may be an intermediate process on the way from the abstract form CVCC (with the rime VCC) to the actual pronunciation CVC (with the rime VC), a production strategy employed by some individual speakers. Second, in the internal structure of the rime, the proportion of deletion of the final coda consonant depended on the frequency of the word rather than on the position of postvocalic consonants on the sonority hierarchy. Finally, the segment following the consonant cluster proved to have an effect on the reduction of that cluster; more precisely, the following contrast was observed between obstruents and non-obstruents, reflecting the effect of sonority: when the segment following the consonant cluster was an obstruent, the proportion of deletion of the final coda consonant was increased. Among these results, the effect of word frequency played a critical role for promoting the deletion of the second coda consonant for clusters in CVCC syllables in spontaneous speech. The current study implies that the structure of syllables as phonological units can vary depending on individual speakers' lexical representation.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.77-83
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• 2015

The aim of this paper is to investigate Japanese speakers' perception of Korean tense consonants. In a range of perceptual experiments Japanese participants were directed to label Korean stimuli using Japanese katakana characters. The analysis of the results showed a strong influence of Japanese phonology in the responses. Japanese perception of sokuon was increased, (1) when the tense consonants were in word medial position, (2) when tense consonants were other than /s/, (3) when the tense consonant followed voiceless consonants, (4) when the consonants were part of a cluster sharing their point of articulation, (5) when preceding vowel were other than /u/, (6) when following vowel were /u/. This result, showing preference for phonology, is in harmony with previous research on the Japanese sokuon perception using Japanese (Takeyasu 2009, Matsui 2011), and Italian (Tanaka & Kubozono 2008) stimuli.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제5권4호
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• pp.129-136
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• 2013

This study investigated how acoustic characteristics (i.e., duration, F1, F2) of English high front vowels /i, ɪ/ are modulated by boundary- and prominence-induced strengthening in native vs. non-native (Korean) speech production. The study also examined how the durational difference in vowels due to the voicing of a following consonant (i.e., voiced vs. voiceless) is modified by prosodic strengthening in two different (native vs. non-native) speaker groups. Five native speakers of Canadian English and eight Korean learners of English (intermediate-advanced level) produced 8 minimal pairs with the CVC sequence (e.g., 'beat'-'bit') in varying prosodic contexts. Native speakers distinguished the two vowels in terms of duration, F1, and F2, whereas non-native speakers only showed durational differences. The two groups were similar in that they maximally distinguished the two vowels when the vowels were accented (F2, duration), while neither group showed boundary-induced strengthening in any of the three measurements. The durational differences due to the voicing of the following consonant were also maximized when accented. The results are discussed further in terms of phonetics-prosody interface in L2 production.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.41-46
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• 2009

Duration of the preceding vowel is known to vary as a function of the (phonological or phonetic) voicing feature of the following consonant. This study raises a question against this general belief. A spectrographic experiment using 14 Korean obstruents (three sets of stops: /p, p', $p^h$/, /t, t', $t^h$/, /k, k', $k^h$/; one set of affricates: /c, c', $c^h$/; one set of fricatives: /s, s'/) reveals that (1) phonetic voicing in the intervocalic lax consonants /p, t, k, c, s/ has nothing to do with the duration of the preceding vowel; (2) vowel length is significantly shorter before tense consonants than before their lax cognates while tense consonants are significantly longer than their lax cognates. Importantly, Korean obstruents are all phonologically voiceless. Therefore, the voicing feature is rejected as the cause of preconsonantal vowel shortening in Korean both phonetically and phonologically. It is suggested that the temporal phenomenon is basically a kind of physiologically-motivated coarticulation though it is restricted by the phonology of a given language. To meet this assumption, the feature voicing should be replaced with the feature tenseness as the cause, which will enable us to explain the temporal phenomenon on the same basis irrespective of language.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.207-207
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• 1996

The neutral tone is one of the most important distinguishing features in Beijing Mandarin, but there are two completely different views on its linguistic function: a special tone(Xu, 1980) versus weak stress(Chao, 1968). In this paper, the acoustic manifestation of the neutral tone will be explored to show that it is closely related to weak stress. 122 disyllabic words in which the second syllable carries the neutral tone, including 22 stress pairs, were uttered by a native male speaker of Beijing dialect and analysed by Kay Digital Sonagraph 5500-1. The results of the acoustic analysis are presented as follows: 1) The first two formants of the medial and the syllabic vowel moves towards that of central vowel with a greater magnitude in the syllable with the neutral tone than in the syllable with any of the four normal tones. Also the vowel ending, and nasal coda /n/ and / / in the syllable with the neutral tone tends to be deleted. 2) In the syllables with the neutral tone, there are strong carryover coarticulations between the medial and syllabic vowel and the preceding unvoiced consonant. In general, the vowel is affected to move towards the position of the central vowel with more greater magnitude by coronal consonant than by labial or velar consonant. 3) In the syllable with the neutral tone, when and only when it precedes a syllable with tone-4, the high vowel following [f], [ts'], [s], [ts'], [s], [tc'] or [c] tends to be voiceless. 4) It can be seen from the acoustical results of 22 stress pairs that the duration of the syllable with the neutral tone is on the average reduced to 55% of that of the syllable with the four normal tones, and the duration of the final in the syllable with neutral tone is on the average reduced to 45% of that of the final in the syllable with the four normal tones(Lin & Yan 1980). 5) The FO contour of the neutral tone is highly dependent on the preceding normal tone(Lin & Yan 1993). For a number of languages it has been found that the vowel space is reduced as the level of stress placed upon the vowel is reduced(Nord 1986). Therefore we reach the conclusion that the syllable with neutral tone is related to weak stress(Lin & Yan 1990). The neutral tone is not a special tone because the preceding normal tone.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.80-84
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• 2006

모음을 삽입시키거나 자음을 탈락시킴으로써 한 음절 내의 영어 연속음을 없애는 자음군 축약 전략이 기존의 연구들마다 다르다는 점에 동기를 부여받아서 한국 학생들의 영어 자음군 축약 전략을 탐구하게 되었다. 대학생 60명의 어두와 어말 자음군 발음을 조사한 결과, 초성이냐 종성이냐 하는 운율적 위치와 자음군이 몇 개로 구성되어 있느냐는 자음군 숫자에 따라 모음 삽입이냐 자음 탈락이냐 하는 자음군 축약 전략에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 삽입과 탈락의 오류 비율은 초성보다는 종성에서 높았고 두 개의 자음군보다는 세 개의 자음군에서 높았다. 전반적으로 삽입 오류 비율이 탈락 오류 비율보다 높았으나, 종성 위치의 세 개의 자음군에서는 탈락 비율이 삽입 비율보다 중요하게 높았다. 종성 위치 세 개의 자음군에서 탈락 비율이 높은 것 때문에 운율 위치에 상관없이 세 개의 자음군에서 삽입보다 탈락 비율이 높게 나타났으며 전반적으로 종성에서 탈락 비율이 높이 나타났다.

• 음성과학
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.21-33
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• 2000

There are two hypotheses with reference to voicing in Korean intervocalic lax stops /p, t, k/ and affricate /c/: (1) the phonologically voiceless lax stops /p, t, k/ and affricate /c/ are realised as voiced allophones in the intervocalic position; (2) the shorter the lax consonant, the higher the percentage of voicing. But the literature reveals that there are views rejecting or doubting them. To clarify these, an experiment was carried out, using a Sun Sparcstation, twelve native speakers of Korean and speech materials embedded in a sentence frame. The results showed that the extent of voicing in lax stops and affricate was too inconsistent to support the full voicing hypothesis, and shorter duration (faster speech) did not necessarily cause a higher percentage of voicing.

• 음성과학
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.19-33
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• 2006

This study explores whether Russian, known to have a process of syllable-final devoicing, reveals differences in vowel duration as a function of the underlying voicing of the coda stop. This paper also examines whether non-native speakers of Russian and English learn typical L2 values in vowel duration. The results indicate that vowels in Russian have a slightly longer mean duration before a voiced stop than before a voiceless stop (a mean difference of 9.52 ms), but in most cases the differences did not exhibit statistical significance. In English the mean difference was 60.05 ms, and the differences were in most cases statistically significant. All native Russian speakers of English produced larger absolute differences in vowel duration for English than for Russian, and all native English speakers of Russian produced smaller absolute differences for Russian than for English. More experienced learners seemed to achieve more native-like values of vowel duration than less experienced learners did, suggesting that learning occurs gradually as the learners gain more experience with the L2.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제6권12호
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• pp.186-191
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• 2006

기존의 유표성 이론에 따르면 마찰음이 파열음보다 유표적이므로 발음하기 어렵다는 것은 잘 알려진 사실이다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 한국 EFL 학습자들이 발음하기 어려운 마찰 [f, v]를 어떻게 인지하는지 살펴보기 위해서 영어 순자음 [p, b, f, v]를 판별하는 실험을 기획하였다. 40명의 한국 학생들이 영어 순자음이 들어간 임시어를 인지하는 테스트를 실행한 결과, 순자음의 운율적 위치가 인지 정확도를 결정짓는데 영향을 마침을 발견하였다. 특히 유표성 이론의 예상과 달리, 무성 마찰음 [f]의 정확도가 강세 뒤 모음사이의 위치를 제외한 모든 위치에서 높게 나왔다. 영어 순자음의 평균 인지 정확도는 강세 앞 모음사이 위치와 어두 초성에서 높은 반면에 어말 종성과 강세 뒤 모음사이 위치에서는 낮았다. 한국 학생들의 영어 순자음 인지에는 유표성 이론뿐 만 아니라 음향학적 두드러짐과 강세를 포함하는 청각적인 요소도 작용함을 보여주고 있다.