The Mechanism and Representation of Korean Three-Way Phonation Contrast: External Photoglottography, Intra-Oral Air Pressure, Airflow, and Acoustic Data

This paper aims to refine our understanding of the speech mechanism and laryngeal features involved in the Korean lenis (/p t k/), aspirated (/ph th kh/), and fortis (/p' t' k'/) plosives. For this purpose we made measurements using a new noninvasive technique called external lighting and sensing photoglottography (ePGG) as well as intra-oral air pressure (Pio) above the glottis, airflow, and acoustic data. From simultaneous recordings of the experimental data, we were ableto quantify the laryngeal-oral coordination of glottal opening and a consonant release, and the covariance of airflow peak and duration of aspiration with glottal opening. The phasing of glottal opening and the 3-way phonation contrast occurs in the order, from early to late, fortis, lenis < aspirated plosives, and the glottal opening peak ranges from low to high in the same order. We also found that a Pio peak, the durations of a high Pio plateau and an oral closure, and F0 are independent of the glottal opening mechanism, varying in the order lenis < aspirated and fortis plosives. From these findings, we propose that the 2 independent patterns are accounted for by the articulator-based features [±spread glottis] and [±tense], respectively.

[1]  R. Netsell,et al.  Subglottal and Intraoral Air Pressures during the Intervocalic Contrast of /t/ and /d/ , 1969 .

[2]  A. Löfqvist,et al.  Laryngeal activity in Swedish obstruent clusters. , 1980, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[3]  Shinji Maeda,et al.  The laryngeal characterization of Korean fricatives: Acoustic and aerodynamic data , 2010 .

[4]  George N. Clements,et al.  The geometry of phonological features , 1985, Phonology Yearbook.

[5]  P. Ladefoged.  A course in phonetics , 1975 .

[6]  S. Jun.  The Phonetics and Phonology of Korean Prosody , 2018 .

[7]  Chin-Wu Kim.  A Theory of Aspiration , 1970 .

[8]  J. Pierrehumbert,et al.  Intonational structure in Japanese and English , 1986, Phonology.

[9]  George N. Clements,et al.  The feature [tense] , 2015 .

[10]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  Invariant articulatory bases of the features [tense] and [spread glottis] in Korean plosives: New stroboscopic cine-MRI data , 2010, J. Phonetics.

[11]  David Silva,et al.  Acoustic evidence for the emergence of tonal contrast in contemporary Korean , 2006, Phonology.

[12]  M. Halle.  Feature geometry and feature spreading , 1995 .

[13]  Taehong Cho,et al.  Acoustic and aerodynamic correlates of Korean stops and fricatives , 2002, J. Phonetics.

[14]  W. Hardcastle.  Some observations on the Tense-Lax Distinction in Initial Stops in Korean , 1973 .

[15]  K. Stevens,et al.  A Note on Laryngeal Features , 2003 .

[16]  Hyang-Sook Sohn.  Underspecification in Korean phonology , 1987 .

[17]  M Sawashima,et al.  New laryngoscopic technique by use of fiber optics. , 1968, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[18]  A. Löfqvist,et al.  Interarticulator Programming in Obstruent Production , 1981, Phonetica.

[19]  E. Selkirk.  On derived domains in sentence phonology , 1986, Phonology.

[20]  L. Lombardi.  Laryngeal features and privativity , 1995 .

[21]  Hyunsoon Kim.  Kyungsang Korean Subjects' Perception of Japanese Pitch-accent , 2011, ICPhS.

[22]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  A phonetically based account of phonological stop assibilation , 2001, Phonology.

[23]  Shinji Maeda,et al.  Laryngeal adjustments in the production of consonant clusters and geminates in Moroccan Arabic , 2008 .

[24]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  Stroboscopic-Cine MRI Data on Korean Coronal Plosives and Affricates: Implications for Their Place of Articulation as Alveolar , 2004, Phonetica.

[25]  Shinji Maeda,et al.  Stroboscopic-cine MRI study of the phasing between the tongue and the larynx in the Korean three-way phonation contrast , 2005, J. Phonetics.

[26]  Hyunsoon Kim.  The phonological representation of affricates: Evidence from Korean and other languages , 1997 .

[27]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  An acoustic study of the Korean fricatives /s, sʹ/: Implications for the features [spread glottis] and [tense] , 2011 .

[28]  R. Kagaya.  A fiberscopic and acoustic study of the Korean stops, affricates and fricatives , 1974 .

[29]  Mieko S. Han,et al.  Acoustic Features of Korean /P, T, K/, /p, t, k/ and /ph, th, kh/ , 1970 .

[30]  J. Pierrehumbert,et al.  Japanese Tone Structure , 1988 .

[31]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  The Place of Articulation of Korean Affricates Revisited , 1999 .

[32]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  Gradual tongue movements in Korean Palatalization as coarticulation: New evidence from stroboscopic cine-MRI and acoustic data , 2012, J. Phonetics.

[33]  Morris Halle,et al.  On distinctive features and their articulatory implementation , 1983 .

[34]  B. Gerratt,et al.  Glottographic measures of vocal fold vibration: An examination of laryngeal paralysis , 1988, The Laryngoscope.

[35]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  The place of articulation of the Korean plain affricate in intervocalic position: an articulatory and acoustic study , 2001, Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

[36]  K. Honda,et al.  Role of Vertical Larynx Movement and Cervical Lordosis in F0 Control , 1999, Language and speech.

[37]  L. Lisker,et al.  A Cross-Language Study of Voicing in Initial Stops: Acoustical Measurements , 1964 .

[38]  Franklin S. Cooper,et al.  Observing Laryngeal Adjustments during Running Speech by Use of a Fiberoptics System , 1970 .

[39]  S. Jun,et al.  The Accentual Phrase in the Korean prosodic hierarchy , 1998, Phonology.

[40]  Chin-Wu Kim.  On the Autonomy of the Tensity Feature in Stop Classification (with Special Reference to Korean Stops) , 1965 .

[41]  A Löfqvist,et al.  Laryngeal vibrations: a comparison between high-speed filming and glottographic techniques. , 1983, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[42]  Hyunsoon Kim.  What features underline the /s/ vs. /s’/ contrast in Korean? , 2011 .

[43]  Hyunsoon Kim,et al.  The laryngeal characterization of Korean fricatives: Stroboscopic cine-MRI data , 2011, J. Phonetics.