Production of pre-fortis clipping in English by Korean and English speakers

Abstract

The term pre-fortis clipping refers to the phenomenon in English of vowels being shorter before voiceless obstruents than before voiced ones. This paper examines whether ratios of duration for vowels before voiceless versus voiced obstruents are affected by speakers’ L1 and segmental properties such as consonantal manner of articulation, vowel height, and phonemic vowel length. Nine Korean speakers and four native speakers of English were recorded reading 30 minimal pairs consisting of English monosyllabic CVC words differing in coda voicing. The mean ratio of duration for vowels preceding voiceless and voiced obstruents respectively was greater for Korean speakers than for English speakers, but mixed-effects model analyses with speaker and item random effects indicate that the effect of L1 was not significant, though there was greater variation for Korean speakers than for English speakers. The ratio of vowel duration significantly differs between Korean and English speakers only before fricatives. Vowels before voiced fricatives are not sufficiently long for Korean speakers as compared to English speakers. It is suggested that, due to their lack of experience with released fricatives, Korean speakers fail to vary vowel durations sufficiently depending on the consonant manner, before stops and fricatives.