음성음운형태론연구 20집 1호 Mi-Ryoung Kim

Kim, Mi-Ryoung. 2014. Ongoing sound change in the stop system of Korean. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 20.1. 51-82. 

Korean stops undergo a sound change, characterized by the merger of voice onset time (VOT) in the consonantal portion but the maximized differences of fundamental frequency (f0) in the vocalic portion. This study replicated VOT and f0 and further examined vowel duration, H1-H2, and intensity (dB) to see how they play a role in the sound change of the Korean stop system. By controlling socio-phonetic factors such as age, gender, dialect, L2 English exposure period, and speech rate, individual differences in sound change were also investigated. Speech data were collected by thirteen speakers of purely native Seoul Korean (7 female and 6 male speakers). The results showed that, similar to VOT and f0, other acoustic parameters also underwent some changes in that each acoustic parameter showed a two-way distinction of H1-H2, intensity, and vowel duration, instead of an early three-way categorization. In particular, the consonantal differences between lax and aspirated stops are being neutralized in terms of VOT and intensity while their vocalic differences are being increased in terms of f0 and H1-H2. There was a correlation between tone and breathiness among female speakers: lax consonants correlated with low tone contain some breathiness. Individual differences in sound change were noticeable. The present findings imply that, since acoustic properties including f0 differences are fully predictable from consonant types, we can say that sound change is still in progress in contemporary Seoul Korean (Korea Soongsil Cyber University).