The Status of Voicing and Aspiration as Cues to Korean Laryngeal Contrast

Abstract

This study reexamines the typologically unusual three-way laryngeal contrast in Korean among ‘lenis’, ‘fortis’, and ‘aspirated’ voiceless plosives in light of a recent proposal by Kim and Duanmu (2004) that the contrast is really among voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and voiceless aspirated categories. The results of a cross-linguistic perception experiment conducted with 24 native Korean speakers are generally consistent with Kim and Duanmu's analysis. The data show that Korean speakers are attuned to voicing in initial position, and this is naturally accounted for by a Korean laryngeal system containing a phonologically voiced category. However, the data also suggest that an important factor in Korean speakers' perception of the ‘lenis’ (~ voiced) plosives word-initially is aspiration. Thus, even if the ‘lenis’ series is analyzed as voiced, it differs in a fundamental way from the phonetic character of other languages' voiced plosives, a finding that severely weakens the cross-linguistic thrust of Kim and Duanmu's argument.