Developmental processes in production of Korean /s/ and /s*/

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate development of Korean children’s productions of tense and lax Korean s. Korean alveolar fricatives are acquired late; /s*/ is generally later than /s/. However, little is known about developmental processes in acquiring the contrast between tense and lax Korean alveolar fricatives. Twenty typically developing monolingual Korean children between 4 and 8 and ten monolingual Korean adults were recruited in Korea. All children fell within normal limits on both a Korean articulation test and a standardized Korean vocabulary test. A picture-naming picture task elicited productions of initial fricatives, alveolar stops, and affricates followed by /a, i, u/ in monosyllabic words. Production error patterns will be analyzed to describe general developmental trends in production. More importantly, the contrast between productions of /s/ and /s*/ will be presented based on acoustic parameters including frication durations, centroid frequency, and harmonic-related amplitude measurements. Finally, similarities and differences in each acoustic parameter will be compared between adults and children. Results will discuss which acoustic parameter(s) effectively describe the distinction between productions of /s/ and /s*/ as well as differences between productions of adults and children between age 4 and 8.