Variation in the Korean integration of English word-final/s (original) (raw)
Related papers
Phonetics versus phonology: English word final /s/ in Korean loanword phonology
Lingua, 2006
In this paper we consider various perspectives on loanword phonology by examining the borrowing into Korean of English words having a word-final /s/. These have been borrowed into Korean with a tense [ ] followed by an epenthetic vowel, as illustrated by the borrowing of English bus as [ 3 ]. The realization of English word-final /s/ as [ ] is apparently unexpected given that English [s] and Korean plain (or lax) [s] seem to be quite similar. Moreover, English /s/ when part of a consonant cluster is consistently borrowed as lax [s] in Korean as exemplified by the borrowing of English test as [t h es t h ]. Kim (1999) and Kim and Curtis (2002) claim that the borrowing of final /s/ as tense [ ] versus its borrowing in a cluster as lax [s] is a case where subphonemic (nonprimary) acoustic properties in both languages are at issue, and thus are supportive of a perceptual matching approach to loanwords. According to them, the property at issue is consonantal duration. They show that English /s/ in a cluster has a shorter duration than /s/ alone and this correlates with the durational difference between tense [ ] and lax [s] in Korean. Iverson and Lee (2004) agree with this view but take the length distinction between Korean tense and lax consonants to be phonemic rather than subphonemic. Here, we point out certain problematic aspects of the durational view of the borrowing of English /s/, and, then, offer a different account of the borrowing of English final /s/ as tense [ ] by referencing phenomena internal to Korean phonology. While we do not deny the role of subphonemic and perceptual factors in how loanwords are realized, we suggest that a variety of factors, both phonetic and phonological, are involved in determining how a particular sound or sound sequence is realized in borrowing.
Tense consonants in Korean revisited: A crosslinguistic perceptual study
CamLing 2006: Proceedings of the Fourth University of Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research (pp. 35–42), 2006
The well-described laryngeal system of Korean has most often been analyzed as a typologically unique contrast among three kinds of voiceless plosives: aspirated, lax, and tense. This paper focuses on the phonetics of the tense series by examining the perception of obstruents described as tense in Korean and as voiceless unaspirated in Chinese, Spanish, and English in an experiment with 32 native Korean speakers. In a native/non-native labeling task, subjects were unable to distinguish between Korean syllables beginning with tense obstruents and Chinese syllables beginning with voiceless unaspirated obstruents of the same place of articulation; similar data holds for many of the Korean vs. Spanish and Korean vs. English syllable comparisons as well. These results suggest that, in word-initial position, tense Korean consonants are not perceptibly different from the voiceless unaspirated consonants of these other languages.
Dimensions in Korean Laryngeal Phonology
Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 2004
The often-cited phenomenon of ‘‘post-obstruent tensing’’ in Korean is taken here to be primarily a skeletal strengthening rather than a feature accretion. On this view, a tense consonant in Korean phonologically fills two skeletal timing slots, i.e., forms a geminate, and the fact that it is articulated with a discernable degree of tension, or glottal constriction, derives from the effects of a surface embellishment which (amending Avery and Idsardi, 2001). We term Korean Enhancement. The special quality of Korean tense consonants then is that they are phonological geminates phonetically augmented with the laryngeal dimension of Glottal Width, which implicates a gesture of glottal constriction; elsewhere, i.e., in singletons, the default gesture for a Glottal Width specification is that of a spread glottis, which results in heavy aspiration in the phonemically aspirated series. A further requirement that the Laryngeal node be structurally bipositional accounts for the celebrated syllable-final neutralizations (monopositional coda obstruents necessarily simplify to lax stops, which have no specified Laryngeal structure) as well as for the appearance of raised pitch on vowels following either tense or aspirated obstruents but not laryngeally empty lax ones (Jun (1993).
Lengthening and shortening processes in Korean
Phonetics and Speech Sciences
This study examines the duration of Korean lax and tense stops in the prosodic word-medial position, their interactions with nearby segments, and the phonological implications of these interactions. It first examines the lengthening of consonants at the function of the short lax stop. Experiment 1 shows that the sonorant C1 is significantly longer before a short lax stop C2 than before a long tense stop. Experiment 2 shows that the short lax stop C1 cancels the contrast between the lax and tense obstruent at C2, making them appear as long tense obstruents (Post-Stop Tensing Rule). We suggest that such lengthening phenomena occur in Korean to robustly preserve the contrastive length difference between C and CC. Second, this study examines the vowel shortening, known as Closed-Syllable Vowel Shortening, before a long tense stop or before the consonant sequence. Experiment 3 suggests that it be interpreted as temporal adjustment to make the interval from the onset of a vowel to the onset of the following vowel of near-equal length. Conclusively, we suggest that Korean speech be planned and controlled with two specific intervals. One is the duration of contrastive consonant intervals between vowels, and the other is the duration from the onset of a vowel to the onset of the following vowel.
The adaptation of English word-initial voiced stops in Korean: A diachronic approach
Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology, 2021
Nam, Sunghyun. 2021. The adaptation of English word-initial voiced stops in Korean: A diachronic approach. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 27.1. 000-00. The word-initial voiced stops in English are adapted into two distinctive laryngeal categories of lenis and fortis in Korean (Kang 2008, Oh 2009). The pattern is not easily predicted by phonological contexts, but a significant diachronic change has been reported. The proportion of fortis adaptation has decreased over time (Kang 2008). However, whether adaptation as fortis is still an active process has not been seriously investigated in previous studies. It has been assumed without question that the initial voiced segment in a novel English word can still be adapted new as fortis, and previous studies have treated fortis adaptation as analogous to the native phonological process of word-initial tensification (Oh 2009, Kim 2017). This study challenges this assumption and clarifies whether the fortis adaptation is still active among recent loans. To this end, it diachronically compared the adaptation of each of 204 most frequent English loans. The results show that the current bifurcation is a mix of older and newer adaptative patterns, where fortis adaptation only exists in the older pattern. In other words, voiced stops in new loanwords are no longer adapted as fortis, and fortis adaptation in the contemporary data is a remnant of the historical pattern. If this analysis is on the right track, the focus should shift towards identifying the factors that facilitate retaining the older fortis forms. This study suggests that the effects of native phonology prohibit them from changing into lenis. (University of British Columbia, PhD student)
Korean fricatives: Production, perception, and laryngeal typology
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (pp. 20–70), 2007
Four experiments were conducted to investigate the contrast between the two voiceless sibilant fricatives of Korean. The results of Experiment 1 show that before /a/, the two fricatives differ in total segment duration, aspiration duration, F1 onset, intensity buildup, and voice quality. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that while segmental duration is not a significant cue in perception, aspiration duration is; the most important cues, however, are qualities of the following vowel. Experiments 3 and 4 replicated Experiments 1 and 2 with the vowel /u/. The results of Experiment 3 confirm those of Experiment 1, except there is no difference in F1 onset or intensity buildup in the high vowel /u/. The results of Experiment 4 show a similar hierarchy of cues, but a much greater deviance from the vocalic cues, suggesting that F1 onset and intensity buildup play an important role in perception. Thus, in spite of consonantal cues distinguishing the fricatives, vocalic cues are dominant in their perception. In having a fricative contrast without a voiced member, Korean constitutes an exception to the laryngeal typology of Jansen (2004). The classification of the non-fortis fricative may require the addition of an aspirated voiceless lenis category to this typology.
Although the segmental properties of Kyungsang Korean have been known to be distinct from those of standard Seoul Korean, the increased influence of Seoul Korean on the regional variety casts doubt on the homogeneity of the dialect. The current study investigated whether the acoustic properties of the vowels and fricatives in Kyungsang Korean are retained by both younger and older generations through a comparison with Seoul Korean. Results of acoustic analyses with 38 female Korean speakers differing in dialect (Kyungsang, Seoul) and age (older, younger) showed that the younger Kyungsang speakers did not maintain the vowel and fricative features unique to their regional dialect, but rather approximate those of standard Seoul Korean. In the acoustic study of vowels, measures of formant frequencies showed that the younger Kyungsang and Seoul speakers share seven vowels, which result from the split of /ʌ/–/-i/ in Kyungsang and the merger of /e/–/ε/ in Seoul Korean. In the acoustic study of fricatives, measures of fricative duration and center of gravity showed that while the two-way fricative contrast is less distinct for older Kyungsang speakers, younger speakers clearly distinguish the two fricatives similar to Seoul speakers. As a consequence of these generational changes in Kyungsang Korean, the six vowels and lack of a fricative contrast exhibited by older generations have given way to seven vowels and a clear distinction between fortis and non-fortis fricatives for younger generations. Based on the similarities in segmental properties between younger Kyungsang and Seoul speakers, it appears that the diachronic sound change is underway in South Kyungsang Korean under the influence of Seoul Korean.
Formant Trajectories of English High Tense and Lax Vowels Produced by Korean and American Speakers
Korean Journal of Linguistics, 2010
Previous studies on the pronunciation of English vowels reported that Korean learners had difficulty producing English tense and lax vowel pairs distinctively. The acoustic comparisons of those studies are mostly based on formant measurements at a single slice of a given vowel section. However, the English vowels usually show dynamic spectral changes across the segment, and only partial data on the vowel segment may be insufficient. The purpose of this paper is to compare the dynamic formant trajectories of English high tense and lax vowel pairs produced by twenty Korean and American males and females. Results showed that the American males and females produced the tense and lax pairs much more distinctly than the Korean counterparts did. Many fine-grained differences along the six measurement points were observed both in the formant trajectories and on the vowel space. These results suggest that more detailed analysis be required in the cross-linguistic comparison of English vowels. Also, the Korean speakers should pay more attention to the dynamic movements of formants in addition to the jaw and tongue positions in order to match those of the American speakers.
Why are Korean tense stops acquired so early?: The role of acoustic properties
Journal of Phonetics
Transcription-based studies have shown that tense stops appear before aspirated or lax stops in most Korean-acquiring children's speech. This order of mastery is predicted by the short lag Voice Onset Time (VOT) values of Korean tense stops, as this is the earliest acquired phonation type across languages. However, the tense stop also has greater motor demands than the other two phonation types, given its pressed voice quality (negative H1-H2) and its relatively high f0 value at vowel onset, word-initially. In order to explain the observed order of mastery of Korean stops, we need a more sensitive quantitative model of the role of multiple acoustic parameters in production and perception. This study explores the relationship between native speakers' transcriptions/categorizations of children's stop productions and three acoustic characteristics (VOT, H1-H2 and f0). The results showed that the primary acoustic parameter that adult listeners used to differentiate tense vs....