Korean spiral stop production: a VOT analysis

Abstract

An investigation was made of the role of voice onset time (VOT) in distinguishing among Korean apical stop consonants. Measurements were made of VOT values for word-initial apical stops in the speech of four native Korean speakers. Words in citation form, in test sentences, in conversations among Korean adults, and in mothers' speech to children were used. Our results are not in accord with other experimenters who found complete separation of the aspirated from the strong and weak categories of Korean stops. VOT values for word-initial apical stops in the speech of all four speakers showed considerable overlap of the weak and aspirated categories. The strong and weak categories were also found to overlap, but the overlap in the weak and aspirated categories was greater. Our data suggest that although VOT is sufficient to distinguish the strong from the aspirated stops, it cannot effectively distinguish either of these from the weak stops. Our findings support Kim (1965), who proposes a feature of “tensity,” independent of VOT, to distinguish weak stops from the strong and aspirated stops of Korean.