Word-final devoicing is a common phonological process in many languages, including Russian. The current study examines word-final devoicing in utterance-medial position to tease apart word-final devoicing from utterance-final devoicing. Our new findings include: (i) neutralization is incomplete in utterance-medial position; and (ii) stops and fricatives differ in terms of implementation of devoicing. By comparing the current results with the previous studies, we entertain the possibility that phonetic implementations of incomplete neutralization may be sensitive to prosodic positions.

This study examined the role played by vowel quality (VQ) in perception of lexical stress by native speakers of English (E-group) and Japanese (J-group). Suprasegmental (SP) parameters and VQ parameters were independently manipulated to make stimuli. The results showed E-group identified the stress location more inaccurately in SP-only, in which the stress pattern was generated using SP parameters alone, than in SP+VQ, in which the stress pattern was generated using both SP and VQ parameters. In contrast, J-group did not differentiate between SP-only and SP+VQ. These results demonstrated E-group used VQ as a cue, whereas J-group did not use it.

It is more difficult to accurately perceive vowels that are produced in singing than those uttered in normal speech. Previous studies have shown that the perceptual difficulty of vowel perception increases as F0 goes higher. However, no studies have examined whether having experiences of classical singing influences the ability to perceive vowel quality produced in high-pitched singing, the gap which the current study intends to fill. The results of the current study suggest that higher F0 makes sung vowels difficult to perceive, replicating the previous findings, and that singers and non-singers show different perception patterns under some circumstances.

This study investigated overlapping of /o/ and /u/ in young Seoul Korean speakers' lenis/aspirated CV syllables, and discusses its results with previous studies' observations of overlapping in speech units of different length. Male speakers showed no overlapping in the lenis CV context, but did in the aspirated CV context. Females showed overlapping in both contexts, with greater overlapping in the aspirated. By comparing with previous V and read speech studies, it suggests that overlapping may be related to coarticulation and clarity reduction for males. For females, there is a possibility that the presence of C reduces overlapping in V.

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.

This paper investigates the three-way laryngeal contrast for stop consonants in Yanbian Korean. Data from 61 speakers (DoB 1935–1992) finds three correlates (VOT, F0, H1-H2) which are dependent on laryngeal type, place of articulation, tone, gender, age, and sub-dialect. Several innovations are found. First, VOT has significantly shortened and tense and lax have merged over apparent time. Second, at vowel onset the F0 associated with tense has decreased relative to aspirated. Third, for H1-H2 aspirated has become more breathy than lax. For all three innovations (young) females are the leaders.

This study reviews the two types of tonal change recently found in contemporary Seoul Korean. The first is the emergence of tones according to the onset at the initial syllable of the accentual phrase. This phenomenon synchronizes the overlapping process of Voice Onset Time (VOT) distribution between lax and aspirated obstruents. Several previous studies have indicated that this dialect is in the middle stage of tonogenesis. The second type of tonal change is the emergence of the H tone in the word il, meaning “one.” The present study examines the possibility of interpreting the two phenomena as lexical diffusion.

The morphophonology of the Korean language is extremely complex. Various phonological phenomena occur when phonemes, syllables, morphemes, and so on, come together. In addition, some of the phonological phenomena show remarkable synchronic variations, about which no sufficient research has been conducted. In this paper, we discuss in detail the phonological phenomena observable in modern Korean speeches, particularly focusing on the n-insertion and the post liquid tensification (PLT) in sino-Korean words, where fluctuations in the pronunciation of the speakers are prominent. We critically examine previous researches on the topic and present the results we have achieved.