한국어 파열음의 음향적 특성과 지각 단서 = Acoustic characteristics and perceptual cues for Korean Stops

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The aim of this research is to investigate acoustic characteristics of three different types of Korean Stops-plain, tensed, and aspirated-, and employ these as a base to determine which one(s) can be used as perceptual cues. In this paper, we have examined acoustic characteristics of Korean Stop, especially voice onset time(VOT), closure duration(CD), degree of pitch of following vowels and differences in the intensity of the stops build-up after the onset of voicing. From the above characteristics, differences can be made betweem word-initial position, the three Korean Stops are distinguished by VOT and pitch, whereas in word-medial by CD, VOT and pitch. However, the acoustic characteristics do not have the same value as perceptual cues. In both word-initial, and medial positions, the immediately following vowels play the most important role in perceiving Korean Stops. And in case of word-medial positions, CD and VOT also play important perceptual roles. In order to have a more fine-grained distinction among Korean Stops, we think future research should be done to investigate which factor(s) of the following vowels is/are the most determinative perceptual cue(s). However based on our investigation, we may conclude that it is highly plausible that pitch can be on of the most important perceptual cues when distinguishing the three Korean Stops.
Keywords : Stops, acoustic characteristics, perceptual cues, pitch of following vowel