The effects of L1 AP-initial boundary tones and laryngeal features in Korean adaptation of Japanese plosives followed by a H or L vowel

Abstract

The present study explores the magnitude of tonal effects and segmental voicing contrast in Korean categorization of Japanese plosives followed by a H or L vowel by conducting a perception experiment in which one hundred sixty native speakers of Seoul and Kyungsang Korean – eighty in each group (40 male and 40 female) – participated. The results have shown that, no matter whether they command a pitch-accent Kyungsang Korean or Seoul Korean which has no lexical pitch-accent, our subjects mostly categorized word-initial Japanese voiceless plosives as aspirated with the significant effect of H and word-medial voiceless plosives as either aspirated or fortis with no H/L effect. Their categorization of word-medial Japanese voiced plosives as lenis is not significantly affected by the H and L tonal difference, either, regardless of dialect differences. In their categorization of word-initial Japanese voiced plosives as lenis, however, the Seoul subjects favored L, and the Kyungsang subjects H.From the results, we propose that the Korean prosodic unit of Accentual Phrase (AP) and laryngeal features interact in the Seoul subjects’ categorization of word-initial Japanese plosives, such that the H/L tonal distinction is made in AP-initial position as enhancement with VOT primarily parsed for cues to the feature [±spread glottis]. As for their categorization of word-medial Japanese plosives with no tonal effect, we propose that closure duration is parsed for cues to the other feature [±tense]. The same proposal is made for the Kyungsang subjects’ categorization except for the H effect in word-initial Japanese voiced plosives.