• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제10권4호
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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.

• 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.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.81-89
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• 2010

Korean and three other languages (English, Arabic, and Japanese) were compared with regard to the compensatory movements in a VC (Vowel and Consonant) sequence and word. For this, Korean data were collected from an experiment and the other languages' data from literature. All the test words of the languages had the same syllabic contexture, i.e., /CVCV(r)/, where C was an oral stop and intervocalic consonants were either bilabial or alveolar stops. The present study found that (1) Korean is most striking in the durational variations of segments (vowel and the following hetero-syllabic consonant); (2) unlike the three languages that show a constant sum of VC, Korean yields a three-way distinction in the length of VC according the type (lax unaspirated vs. tense unaspirated vs. tense aspirated) of the following stop consonant; (3) a durational constancy is maintained up to the word level in the three languages, but Korean word duration varies as a function of the feature tenseness of the intervocalic consonants; (4) consonant duration is proven to differentiate Korean the most from the other languages. It is suggested that the durational difference between a lax consonant and its tense cognate(s) and the degree of compensation between V and C are determined by the phonology in each language.

• 음성과학
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.87-98
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• 2000

Timing in speech is determined by many factors. In this paper, we introduce and discuss some factors that have generally been regarded as important in speech timing. They include stress, syllable structure, consonant insertion or deletion, tempo, lengthening at clause, phrase and word boundaries, preconsonantal vowel shortening, and compensation between segments or within phonological units (e.g., word, foot), compression due to the increase of syllables in word or foot level, etc. and each of them may playa crucial role in the structuring of speech timing in a language. But some of these timing factors must interact with each other rather than be independent and the effects of each factor on speech timing will vary from language to language. On the other hand, there could well be many other factors unknown so far. Finding out and investigating new timing factors and reinterpreting the already-known timing factors should enhance our understanding of timing structures in a given language or languages.