• MALSORI
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• no.33_34
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• pp.1-10
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• 1997

Korean stop consonants are well known for their tripple distinction. In word initial position lax, tense and aspirated consonants are all voiceless. They are differentiated by the degree of tension, aspiration and VOT(voice onset time). But in intervocalic position, lax consonants become voiced. In this study I compare the acoustic features of Korean intervocalic lax and tense stops. The closure duration of lax stops is shorter than that of tense consonants. The preceding vowel length is longer in tan than that in tense consonants. I modify the above acoustic characteristics by an experimental methods. For example, I shorten the closure duration of intervocalic tense stops by 5 steps. r also do auditory tests which will show us listener's reaction on the above examples. And do the same job with the preceding vowels. According to the auditory test, the closure duration does an important role in differentiating Korean intervocalic lax and tense stops. But the preceding vowel length has almost nothing to do with the distinction between lax and tense stops. So I conclude that acoustic features also have hierarchy. Some features have categorical characteristics and others don't.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.7-18
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• 2008

The purpose of the present study is to test whether VOT values of the Korean plain stops in intervocalic position are encoded differently by individual speakers. In Scobbie (2006), the VOT values to the /p/-/b/ voicing contrast in Shetland Isles English were found to demonstrate a high degree of inter-speaker variation. More importantly such variation was not arbitrary: first, there was an inverse relationship between the amount of prevoicing for /b/ and the duration of aspiration for /p/. Second, the inter-speaker variation was shown to be similar between the subjects and their parents. These results suggest that the phonetic targets for VOT are specified in fine detail by speakers. The present study further explores this issue in terms of testing 1) whether the likelihood and the amount of voicing for the intervocalic plain stops in Korean show inter-speaker variation; 2) whether the likelihood and the exact amount of voicing for the intervocalic plain stops in Korean are closely related to the amount of aspiration for the Korean intervocalic aspirated stops. The results of the study suggest that the voicing of intervocalic plain stops in Korean varied according to the individual speakers, but it did not seem to be directly interrelated with the amount of aspiration of the aspirated stop sin the same phonological position.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.57-61
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• 2020

Previous research has indicated that the patterns of phonetic modulations induced by prominence are not consistent across languages but are conditioned by sound systems specific to a given language. Most studies examining the prominence effects in Korean have been restricted to segments in word-initial and phrase-initial positions. The present study, thus, set out to explore the prominence effects for Korean stop consonants in word-medial intervocalic positions. A total of 16 speakers of Seoul Korean (8 males, 8 females) produced word-medial intervocalic lenis and aspirated stops with and without prominence. The prominence was induced by contrast focus on the phonation-type contrast, that is, lenis vs. aspirated stops. Our results showed that F0 of vowels following both lenis and aspirated stops became higher when the target stops received focus than when they did not, whereas voice onset time (VOT) and voicing during stop closure for both lenis and aspirated stops did not differ between the focus and no-focus conditions. The findings add to our understanding of diverse patterns of prominence-induced strengthening on the acoustic realizations of segments.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.203-216
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to revisit the property of the Korean plain stops in intervocalic position. More specifically, focusing on a word-internal, intervocalic position, this study investigates 1) how often speakers pronounce intervocalic. stops as fully voiced, 2) in what amount each speaker voice the plain stops during the stop closure, 3) whether the preceding or the following vowel influences the voicing of target consonants, and 4) the fundamental frequency pattern at the vowel onset after the target consonant shows any consistent pattern, regardless of whether voicing is present during the closure. The results of this study give strong support for the phonetic account of the voicing distinction in Korean. (Jun 1995, 1996).

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.39-44
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• 2018

This study aimed to examine whether preconsonantal vowel shortening, which occurs in many languages, exists in Chinese. To this end, we compared 15 pairs of Chinese bi-syllabic words with intervocalic unaspirated/aspirated stops. The results revealed that (1) the effect of the feature aspiration of the following stop on the preceding vowel (V1) was neither significant nor consistent though V1 tends to be a little longer before an unaspirated stop; (2) the following unaspirated stop closure (C) was similar to or longer than its aspirated cognate; (3) the durational sum of V1 and C was longer when the stop is unaspirated, and V1 and C had no compensatory relationship; (4) Voice Onset Time (VOT) was significantly longer when the stop is aspirated than unaspirated; (5) the vowel (V2) following VOT was significantly longer when the stop is unaspirated, so the differentials in VOT were partially compensated; (6) despite the partial compensation, the sum of VOT and V2 was longer when the stop is aspirated; (7) words with an intervocalic aspirated stop were longer than those with its unaspirated cognate. It is concluded that while VOT is the most important factor for deciding the timing structure of Chinese words with intervocalic stops, closure duration is crucial for Korean and many other languages.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.3
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• pp.93-108
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• 1998

This paper attempts to acoustically examine the place of articulation of Korean affricates. In order to pursue an acoustic analysis of where Korean affricates are articulated, we resort to LPC spectra of the Korean plain affricate /c/ in intervocalic position, based on theoretical assumptions (e.g., Stevens 1993a), and compare the data to that of the Korean alveolar consonants /t, s/ in the same context. Our phonetic results show that in intervocalic position, the Korean plain affricate is alveolar just like the Korean alveolar consonants /t, s/, supporting the articulatory studies of $Skali{\check{c}}kov{\acute{a}}$ (1960) and Kim (1997).

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.11-15
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• 2009

The aim of this study was to identify production difficulties of Korean learners of English in their articulation of English bilabial stops /p, b/ and labiodental fricatives /f, v/. Sixty non-sense syllables and twelve words were produced three times by nine graduate students. Test scores were measured from the score board made by FluSpeak, a speech training software program, which was designed for English pronunciation practice and improvement. Results show that 1) the subjects had lower scores in producing /p, b/ than /f, v/ from all positions, and 2) subjects had lower scores in medial (inter-vocalic) position than in initial (pre-vocalic) position and in final (post-vocalic) position when they produced /p/, /b/, /f/, and /v/. The results suggest that on the whole, Korean learners of English have much difficulty in producing /b/ and that they also have more articulatory problems in intervocalic than in the other positions when they produce these bilabial stops and labiodental fricatives.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.217-224
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• 1997

The present study was performed to investigate the voice onset time(VOT) of Korean stop consonants as the expanded research of Pyo and Choi(1996) : the intensity, and the air flow rate of Korean stops as the preliminary study f3r the classical singing training. Nine Korean stops(/P, P', $P^{h}$/, /t, t', $t^{h}$/, /k, k', $k^{h}$/) and a vowel /a/ were used as speech materials. CV and VCV syllable patterns were used for VOT measurement, and CV pattern was used for intensity and air flow rate measurement. Five males and five females pronounced the speech tasks with comfortable pitch and intensity : VOT, intensity, and air flow rate were measured. As results, the prevocalic stop consonants showed bilabials, the shortest VOT and velars, the longest one, except the unaspirated stops which showed the shortest was velar /k'/, and the alveolar /t'/ was the longest. Considering the tensity, heavily aspirated stops showed the longest, and the unaspirated, the shortest. Also the intervocalic stops showed similar results with the prevocalic stops, except the slightly aspirated stops which showed alveolar sound was the longest, and the bilabials, which showed the shortest was the slightly aspirated /p/, unlike the prevocalic stops, the unaspirated /p'/ the shortest. All of prevocalic stops showed the highest air flow rate in heavily aspirated stops, the second, thee slightly aspirated ones, and the lowest was the unaspirated stops. And as a whole, bilabials were the highest, and velars, the lowest, except in the heavily aspirated stops, which was the alveolar sound, the lowest. In the dimension of intensity, the unaspirated and bilabials were the highest, and the heavily aspirated and velars were e lowest, except the slightly aspirated stops, which were the bilabials the lowest, and the alveolars the highest.