2017 Volume 21 Issue 2 Pages 61-79
The purpose of this paper is to examine the acoustic features of word-medial intervocalic stops (aspirated, lenis, and fortis consonants) of Seoul Korean. Seventy-three native speakers born between 1953 and 1999 (aged from 15 to 61 at the time of recording) read VCV words, and the data collected were analyzed in terms of voice onset time (VOT), closure duration of stop consonants (CD), total duration (TD), preceding vowel duration (PVD), fundamental frequency (F0) of post-stop vowels. The main findings are as follows. (1) Each acoustic feature alone cannot differentiate the three stops. (2) The effect of VOT, CD, and TD are positive, and the combination of VOT and CD or of VOT and TD can be the cue for differentiating the three stops. (3) The effects F0 of post-stop vowels and PVD are negative. (4) While it is the case that the younger the speaker is, the longer the VOT for lenis stops in word-initial position is, no such VOT changes across generations were confirmed in intervocalic position.
