Preboundary lengthening and articulatory strengthening in Korean as an edge-prominence language

Abstract

This study examined preboundary lengthening and other kinematic characteristics of articulatory gestures in CV.CV and CV.CVC before prosodic boundaries in Korean. Preboundary lengthening was found to be extended to initial syllables in both CV.CVand CV.CVC, while its magnitude was largest on the final syllable. The preboundary lengthening effect was also reflected in the time-to-peak velocity (acceleration duration), but only on gestures of the final syllable. Preboundary lengthening was accompanied by substantial increase in both displacement and peak velocity, showing domain-final articulatory strengthening. This articulatory strengthening effect on preboundary gestures (at the right edge of prosodic constituent) was largely dovetailed with the notion of an edge-prominence language where boundary marking is assumed to be closely related with prominence lending. These results were compared in two different conditions driven by information structure (‘new’ vs. ‘given’) and were discussed to understand the observed kinematic pattern in dynamical terms in the theoretical framework of the π-gesture model.