Effects of Sound Change on the Weighting of Acoustic Cues to the Three-Way Laryngeal Stop Contrast in Korean: Diachronic and Dialectal Comparisons

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunjung Lee ◽  
Allard Jongman
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Dialectal Variation ◽  
Cue Weighting ◽  
Age Variation ◽  
Korean Stops

Both segmental and suprasegmental properties of the South Kyungsang dialect of Korean have changed under the influence of standard Seoul Korean. This study examines how such sound change affects acoustic cues to the three-way laryngeal contrast among Korean stops across Kyungsang generations through a comparison with Seoul Korean. Thirty-nine female Korean speakers differing in dialect (Kyungsang, Seoul) and age (older, younger) produced words varying in initial stops and lexical accent patterns, for which voice onset time and fundamental frequency (F0) at vowel onset were measured. This study first confirms previous findings regarding age and dialectal variation in distinguishing the three Korean stops. In addition, we report age variation in the use of voice onset time and F0 for the stops in Kyungsang Korean, with younger speakers using F0 more than older speakers as a cue to the stop distinction. This age variation is accounted for by the reduced lexical tonal properties of Kyungsang Korean and the increased influence of Seoul Korean. A comparison of the specific cue weighting across speaker groups also reveals that younger Kyungsang speakers pattern with Seoul speakers who arguably follow the enhancing F0 role of the innovative younger Seoul speakers. The shared cue weighting pattern across generations and dialects suggests that each speaker group changes the acoustic cue weighting in a similar direction.

VOT merger in Heritage Korean in Toronto

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonjung Kang ◽  
Naomi Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Sex Difference ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Korean Speakers ◽  
Internal Variation

AbstractKorean has a typologically unusual three-way laryngeal contrast in voiceless stops among aspirated, lenis, and fortis stops. Seoul Korean is undergoing a female-led sound change in which aspirated stops and lenis stops are merging in voice onset time (VOT) and are better distinguished by the F0 (fundamental frequency) of the following vowel than by their VOT, in younger speakers' speech. This paper compares the VOT pattern of Homeland (Seoul) and Heritage (Toronto) Korean speakers and finds that the same change is in progress in both. However, in the heritage variety, younger speakers do not advance the change, unlike their Seoul counterparts. Rather they have leveled off or are perhaps reversing the change, and there is very little sex difference among the younger heritage speakers' patterns. We consider possible accounts of the differences between the Seoul and Toronto patterns, building our understanding of how language-internal variation operates in bilingual speakers, a topic that has received relatively less attention in the variationist literature.

Stop consonant productions of Korean–English bilingual children

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUE ANN S. LEE ◽  
GREGORY K. IVERSON
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Developmental Period ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
English Bilingual

The purpose of this study was to conduct an acoustic examination of the obstruent stops produced by Korean–English bilingual children in connection with the question of whether bilinguals establish distinct categories of speech sounds across languages. Stop productions were obtained from ninety children in two age ranges, five and ten years: thirty Korean–English bilinguals, thirty monolingual Koreans and thirty monolingual English speakers. Voice-Onset-Time (VOT) lag at word-initial stop and fundamental frequency (f0) in the following vowel (hereafter vowel-onset f0) were measured. The bilingual children showed different patterns of VOT in comparison to both English and Korean monolinguals, with longer VOT in their production of Korean stop consonants and shorter VOT for English. Moreover, the ten-year-old bilinguals distinguished all stop categories using both VOT and vowel-onset f0,whereas the five-year-olds tended to make stop distinctions based on VOT but not vowel-onset f0. The results of this study suggest that bilingual children at around five years of age do not yet have fully separate stop systems, and that the systems continue to evolve during the developmental period.

Acoustic Integrity of Speech Production in Children With Moderate and Severe Hearing Impairment

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ryalls ◽  
Annie Larouche
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Total Duration ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Formant Frequencies ◽  
Standard Deviations

Ten normally hearing and 10 age-matched subjects with moderate-to-severe hearing impairment were recorded producing a protocol of 18 basic syllables [/pi/,/pa/,/pu/; /bi/,/ba/,/bu/; /ti/,/ta/,/tu/; /di/,/da/,/du/; /ki/,/ka/,/ku/; /gi/,/ga/,/gu/] repeated five times. The resulting 90 syllables were digitized and measured for (a) total duration; (b) voice-onset time (VOT) of the initial consonant; (c) fundamental frequency (F 0 ) at midpoint of vowel; and (d) formant frequencies (F 1 , F 2 , F 3 ), also measured at midpoint of vowel. Statistical comparisons were conducted on (a) average values for each syllable, and (b) standard deviations. Although there were numerical differences between normally hearing and hearing-impaired groups, few differences were statistically significant.

Vowel-Related Differences in Laryngeal Articulatory and Phonatory Function

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen B. Higgins ◽  
Ronald Netsell ◽  
Laura Schulte
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Vocal Fold ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Air Flow ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Air Pressure ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Pressure Peak ◽  
Speaking Task

The purpose of this investigation was to study the interaction between the supralaryngeal and laryngeal components of the speech mechanism by examining vowel-related effects for a variety of vocal fold articulatory and phonatory measures. Secondary issues were to determine if vowel-related differences were influenced by the nature of the speaking task or gender. Between-vowel differences in estimated subglottal air pressure, peak oral air flow, mean phonatory air flow, air flow near the termination of the vowel, electroglottograph cycle width (EGGW), fundamental frequency, and voice onset time were examined for men and women during syllable repetitions and sentence productions. Significant vowel-related differences were found for all of the measures except mean phonatory air flow, and generally were not influenced by speaking task or gender. Vowel-related effects for estimated subglottal air pressure, peak oral air flow, fundamental frequency, and VOT were consistent with some earlier studies. New findings included vowel-related differences in EGGW and air flow near the termination of the vowel. We propose a model that includes the contribution of mechanical forces, reflexive neural activity, and learned neural activity to explain vowel-related effects. When vowel height is varied, changes in laryngeal cartilage positioning and vocal fold and vocal tract tension appear to influence laryngeal articulatory and phonatory function.

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