Three-dimensional reduction for three-way contrast: Conversational stops in Korean

Abstract

Phonetic reduction in conversational speech is widely acknowledged across different languages and dialects. Previous experimental studies have reported that spontaneous conversations yield greater variability and reduction in acoustic signals when compared to careful speech. This study investigates the acoustic reduction in intervocalic Korean stops—phonemically lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops—from conversational speech, and adds to the increasing body of reduced speech research. Comparisons of Korean stops from careful and conversational speech confirm greater acoustic variability in conversational speech than in careful speech. Furthermore, conversational stops in Korean show that phonetic reduction occurs in multiple acoustic dimensions. Lenis stops exhibit phonetic reduction represented by both a smaller intensity difference and a higher pitch, fortis stops do so by a higher pitch only, and aspirated stops do so by both a smaller VOT and a higher pitch. Results from this study leave open the possibility of manner-specific strategies in phonetic reduction within a language, and merit further cross-linguistic examination of conversational speech.