Mongolian Speakers' Production and Perception of Korean Word-Initial Stops

Abstract

It has long been acknowledged that Korean three-way stop distinction might be difficult to acquire for L2 whose L1 has only binary distinction in consonant categories. Given that, this study examines whether/how Mongolian L2 speakers produce Korean three-way stops in word-initial position and whether they perceive the subtle differences in phonemic status. For production and perception tasks, twenty beginner-level Mongolian of Korean participated in the experiments. First, in order to explore their L1 Mongolian influence on L2 production, we also looked into the phonetic properties of Mongolian stops. The result showed that VOT was longer for voiceless than for voiced stop, f0 of the following vowels was higher for voiced than for voiceless stops, and intensity in transition from a stop to the following vowel was higher for voiceless than for voiced stop condition. Next, Korean three-way stops were differently produced statistically in all of the phonetic correlates by Mongolian speakers. Finally, Korean lax stops were identified as either lax or tense, tense stops were most accurately identified, and aspirated ones were perceived as aspirated above the chance level. These results provide interesting implications concerning Mongolian stops and Mongolian learners acquisition of Korean stops. First, Mongolian stops may have to be differentiated in the dimension of aspiration rather than voicing. Second, Mongolian might suffer from difficulty in production and perception of Korean three-way stops due to the L1 transfer effect of two-way Mongolian stops.