Segmental Interpretation of Suprasegmental

Segmental Interpretation of Suprasegmental Properties in Non-native Phoneme Perception 저자

Kim, Miran

(Authors)

출처 (Source)

말소리와 음성과학 7(3), 2015.9, 117-128 (12 pages) Journal of The Korean Society of Speech Sciences 7(3), 2015.9, 117-128 (12 pages)

(Publisher)

한국음성학회 The Korean Association of Speech Sciences

URL

http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/NODE06519378

APA Style

Kim, Miran (2015). Segmental Interpretation of Suprasegmental Properties in Non-native Phoneme Perception. 말소리와 음성과학, 7(3), 117-128.

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Journal of the Korean Society of Speech Sciences Vol.7 No.3 (2015.09.30) ISSN 2005-8063, pp. 117~128

ksss.jams.or.kr http://dx.doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2015.7.3.117

Segmental Interpretation of Suprasegmental Properties in Non-native Phoneme Perception

Kim, Miran1)

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the acoustic-perceptual relation between Korean dent-alveolar fricatives and the English voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ in varied prosodic contexts (e.g., stress, accent, and word initial position). The denti-alveolar fricatives in Korean show a two-way distinction, which can be referred to as either plain (lenis) /s/ or fortis /s*/. The English alveolar voiceless fricative /s/ that corresponds to the two Korean fricatives would be placed in a one-to-two non-native phoneme mapping situation when Korean listeners hear English /s/. This raises an interesting question of how the single fricative of English perceptually maps into the two-way distinction in Korean. This paper reports the acoustic-perceptual mapping pattern by investigating spectral properties of the English stimuli that are heard as either /s/ or /s*/ by Korean listeners, in order to answer the two questions: first, how prosody influences fricatives acoustically, and second, how the resultant properties drive non-native listeners to interpret them as segmental features instead of as prosodic information. The results indicate that Korean listeners’ responses change depending on the prosodic context in which the stimuli are placed. It implies that Korean speakers interpret some of the information provided by prosody as segmental one, and that the listeners take advantage of the information in their judgment of non-native phonemes. Keywords: perceptual mapping, alveolar fricative /s/, segmental vs. suprasegmental phonetic information

where differential perception of fricatives is attributed to acoustic

1. Introduction

properties of the frication noise, including duration (e.g., You, It has been reported that Korean listeners perceive English /s/

1979; Klatt, 1987; Behrens and Blumstein, 1988a; Schadle, 1985;

as either plain /s/ or fortis /s*/ depending on the characteristics

Kim, 1999; Kim & Curtis, 2001; among others). However, the

of particular tokens of English /s/, as they vary according to its

phoneme mapping pattern provided by Kim (1999) and Kim &

syllabic affiliation. According to Kim (1999) and Kim & Curtis

Curtis (2001) does not match with the Korean native grammar,

(2001), English /s/ in consonant clusters maps into a plain /s/

where both plain and fortis fricatives appear as a single

while English single /s/ and word final /s/ maps into a fortis /s*/

consonant without any phonotactic restrictions.

in Korean. They hypothesized that the durational properties of

This inconsistency can be connected to the fact that frication

English /s/ vary depending on syllable type, single or cluster

noise itself may not provide enough cues to phoneme

onsets, and that Korean listeners use this durational differences

identification, as other studies have reported (Moon, 1997; Lee,

as a cue in their perception of English /s/. This result is indeed

2001; Jang, 2001 for Korean-English /s/ mapping; Behrens &

consistent with other previous studies on fricatives in general,

Blumstein, 1988b for English fricatives). In addition, studies on Korean obstruents,

1) Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, [email protected]

considering categorization among lenis,

aspirated, and fortis consonants, show that the Korean fricatives influence their following vowels in a linguistically significant

Received: September 7, 2015 Revised: September 16, 2015 Accepted: September 19, 2015

way (Cho, 1996; Lee, 2001). The fact that the vowel plays an important role in the perception of Korean fricatives is consistent

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Journal of the Korean Society of Speech Sciences Vol.7 No.3 (2015)

with studies on English fricatives, where vowel information is

Korean fricative studies have focused on comparing the phonetic

implicated in the perception of fricatives (Behrens & Blumstein,

and perceptual distinctions between phonemes that are identical

1988b; Klatt, 1987; Lambacher at al., 2001).

in terms of manner and place of articulation.

In parallel with the importance of vowel information in

The phonetic-perceptual relation associated with the three-way

fricative perception, the current study examines prosodic effects

distinction for Korean stops has been extensively researched in

on /sV(C)/ syllables in English, whose subsequent acoustic

the literature. They introduce typologically uncommon phonemic

properties may also influence the categorization of English /s/ as

contrasts among them in terms of lenis, aspirated, and fortis, and

one of the two fricatives by Korean listeners. Prosodic boundary

also provide an interesting relation between different acoustic

differences, for instance utterance-initial vs. utterance-medial,

properties and multiple cues in the perceptual distinction from

affect segments quantitatively or qualitatively, as reported in Cho,

one another (Kim, 1965; Han and Weitzman, 1970; Halle and

McQueen & Cox, 2007) for the case of domain-initial

Stevens 1971; Hardcastle, 1973; Kagaya, 1974; Hirose, Lee, &

strengthening in English. It has been also noted that the quality

Ushijima, 1974; Baik 1998; Cho, Jun, and Ladefoged, 2002;

of segments can be affected by stress. Stress effects are not

Park, 2002b; among others). Studies of the Korean fricative /s/,

limited to vowels and are also found in consonants (Klatt, 1974;

on the other hand, shows another interesting distinction; here the

Cho & Keating, 2001; Keating, Cho, Fougeron, and Hsu, 2003;

lenis-aspirated distinction disappears, and one phoneme /s/

Cho & McQueen, 2005).

contrasts with its fortis counterpart /s*/. Therefore, many studies

Given that Korean has two voiceless alveolar fricatives which

have focused on which category Korean-/s/ belongs to, lenis or

correspond to English /s/, an interesting question arises as to

aspirated (Kim, 1970; Iverson, 1983; Cho, 1996; Kang, 2000;

how Korean listeners perceive English /s/ that does not perfectly

Park, 2002a; Yoon, 1999, 2002; Oh, 2003, among others).

match any of their phonemes. Considering the findings in the

Perception of speech sounds is assumed to be influenced by

literature together, the current study hypothesizes that prosodic

speakers' experience with their native language system, and the

effects on English /s/ influence Korean listeners' perception of

investigation of the phonetic properties of Korean fricatives is

this non-native phoneme. One implication behind this hypothesis

the basis for predicting which properties of the native sound

is that Korean listeners interpret prosodic information associated

system play a role in perceptual categorization of non-native

with English /s/ as a part of the segmental properties of English

sounds.

/s/ instead of attributing them to prosodic effects.

perceptual aspects of each fricative will be discussed.

For

Korean

fricatives,

articulatory,

acoustic,

and

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 overviews previous studies on phonetic, perceptual, and prosodic aspects of

2.1 Phonetic properties of Korean fricatives

the English alveolar fricative and the denti-alveolar fricatives in

The phonemic inventory of Korean obstruents is shown in

Korean. Section 3 details a perceptual experiment to test the

, where the lenis-aspirated contrast becomes neutralized

hypothesis and discusses the results. An acoustic analysis is also

in fricatives, yielding an idiosyncratic distinction from the other

provided in this section regarding the English /s/ varied in

obstruents' distribution.

prosodic contexts. Finally, section 4 will summarize the findings and discuss some of the important implications regarding acoustic-perceptual mapping relation in non-native phoneme perception contexts.

2. Voiceless alveolar fricatives in Korean and English Most studies on English fricatives have dealt with the acoustic

Table 1. Korean phonemic inventory (obstruents) Three-way distinction Labial Denti-alveolar Stops Dorsal Affricates Alveo-palatal Two-way distinction Fricatives Denti-alveolar

Lenis p ( ) t ( ) k ( ) t ( ) Plain s ( )

ㅂ ㄷ ㄱ ㅈ ㅅ

Aspirated ph ( ) th ( ) kh ( ) th ( )

ㅍ ㅌ ㅋ ㅊ

Fortis p* ( ) t* ( ) k* ( ) t* ( ) Fortis s* ( )

ㅃ ㄸ ㄲ ㅉ ㅆ

and perceptual aspects in terms of different manner or place of articulation (Hughes & Halle, 1956; Harris, 1958; Strevens, 1960;

shows that stops and affricates have counterparts in

Heinz & Stevens, 1961; Shadle, 1985,1990, 1997; MaCastle,

terms of lenis, aspirated, and fortis while fricatives are contrasted

1978, 1979a, 1979b; Nartey, 1982; Klatt, 1987; Behren &

in fortis vs. non-fortis counterparts, but lacking the contrast

Blumstein, 1988a, 1988b; among others). On the other hand,

between lenis and aspirated. This gap has motivated a number of

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Segmental Interpretation of Suprasegmental Properties in Non-native Phoneme Perception

studies to investigate how to best describe /s/.

119

by Korean listeners as in (1).

Korean orthography, which is a highly phonemic transcription, represents /s/ as a lenis, as evidenced by the fact that it shares the same representational convention with other lenis obsturents;

(1) English loan word to Korean with voiceless dental fricatives /s/ (Kim, 1999; 51):3)

lenis consonants are transcribed with a single letter, while fortis

a. English /s/ to Korean plain /s/: scale, schedule, slang, slide,

consonants are represented in an orthographical gemination of a

small, smart, snack, snow, special, speech, square, stage,

lenis counterpart (e.g. the labial fortis stop (' ') is from its lenis

stand, student, super, sweater, sweet, (supermarket), (Sri

counterpart (' '), and so forth). This seems to suggest that /s/

Lanka), etc.

ㅂ

ㅃ

belongs to a lenis category. One other piece of evidences is that

b. English /s/ to Korean fortis /s*/: saccharin, salad, sausage,

/s/ undergoes fortition after syllable-final stops just as other lenis

season, secret, sensation, seminar, sign, submarine, symbol,

obstruents do, in contrast to the aspirated series (i.e., 'picking'

→ [tɕip.k*i], /tɕipsi/ → [tɕips*i], but not 'house-key' /tɕipkhi/ → *[tɕipk*i]), as discussed in Kim-Renaud (1976) and

swimming, syrup, system, cigar, (cider), (Cinderella),

/tɕip.ki/

(soda), (Satan), etc.

Cho, Jun, and Ladefoged (2002). However, there are studies

The pattern given in (1) suggests that English /s/ in consonant

which suggest that acoustic properties of Korean-/s/ are close to

clusters maps into the Korean plain /s/ while the English single

those of the aspirated category in terms of glottal opening or

/s/ maps into the Korean fortis /s*/. One problem here is that

vocal fold tension (Kagaya, 1974), or that they have intermediate

foreign word transcription in Korean has an instructed rule,

status between lenis and aspirated in terms of Voice Onset Time

which forces Koreans not to adopt fortis consonants in

(VOT; Iverson, 1983), in comparison to contrasts in the same

transcription.4) For example, 'supermarket' is often transcribed

dimension in Korean obstruents. Thus, it can be said that /s/

with the Korean lenis letter due to the transcriptional restriction.

behaves like the lenis series phonologically, but shows the

As Kim (1999) noted, the judgment for this form was not agreed

phonetic properties neither of lenis nor of fortis.2)

upon by the subjects (Kim, 1999; p. 51). Another problem is

The focus in looking for distinctive properties for the two

that when Korean listeners hear a foreign word as a whole, they

Korean fricatives is usually either in frication noise (Iverson,

have a bias toward a lenis, which is likely to influence the

1983; Kim, 1999; Kang, 2000; Kim & Curtis 2001, among

listeners' judgment of what they hear. In other words, what they

others), or in the aspiration between the fricative and vowel

answered in her survey can either be based on their perception

(Yoon, 1999, 2002). However, there have been studies reporting

of the sound or based on the "correct" transcription for foreign

that vowels adjacent to the fricative differ in duration in terms

words that they have learned prescriptively. Therefore, degree of

of plain and fortis in Korean (Moon, 1997; Lee 2001; Park,

familiarity with the word is possibly involved in her results.

2002). This, combined with the spectral differences reported by

A perception test was also conducted in Kim (1999)

Cho, Jun, and Ladefoged (2002), suggests that post-fricative

with stimuli varied in the duration of frication noise for /s/. The

vowels carry important cues in the identification of the two

frication noise was followed by 50 ms of the vowel [a] excised

fricatives in Koreans' perception.

from the word "sock". 16 subjects heard the stimuli with 35 trials yielding a total of 560 responses. The result shows that

2.2 Perceptual mapping

longer duration gradually changes the responses of English /s/

There have been three relevant studies on phoneme mapping

perception from plain to fortis. A drastic change of the responses

between the two languages, and the studies show different

from 110 ms to 140 ms is observed: 17.5% increase for /s*a/

results. The first two studies, Kim (1999) and Kim & Curtis

response. This result in general confirms her duration hypothesis.

(2001), entertain the hypothesis that syllable type in English has

However, the response change around 110-140 ms is striking

a phonetic reflex in terms of [s] duration, and that Korean listeners use the durational difference as a main cue when they categorize English [s]. The hypothesis is based on Kim’s (1999) survey with 10 native speakers. She reports /s/ loanword patterns 2) This paper will use "plain" for /s/ rather than identifying it as lenis or aspirated fricatives.

3) Kim (1999) reports that words in parenthesis indicate disagreement among subjects. 4) The bulletin distributed by the Ministry of Education instructs as follows: 'In principle, stops in foreign words are not transcribed as fortis. (Item 85-11).' Fricatives may presumably follow this rule, and one example is found in the description; 'setback' /setbek/, not with fortis /s*/ in Korean.

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when we consider the mean duration of Korean fricatives: for

Table 2. /s/-replacement stimuli used in Jang (2002)

instance, Lee (2001) obtained the mean duration of /s/ and /s*/ as 139.8 ms (SD: ±2.96) and 138.6 ms (SD: ± 10.01) in word-initial positions. Thus, we see that the actual durations of

Potentially maps into /s*/ Word Stimuli

'[s1]olace’

'[s2]arcastic’

(a)'[s3]olace'

(b)'[s3]arcastic'

Potentially maps into /s/ '[s3]tark’ (c)'[s1]tark'

(d)'[s2]tark'

the native language consonants were not reflected in the

Stress

perception experiment in Kim (1999), and the findings in Kim

Position

(1999) can be understood that Korean speakers show a

Note: Longer duration in the order of s1> s2> s3 (Jang,2002);

Unstressed

Cluster onset

Stressed

Unstressed

Single onset

stressed vowels are underlined.

preference for short plain and long fortis fricatives in non-native phoneme perception.

Stressed

cut line between (a)-(b) and (c)-(d) in pairs, because the stimuli

For the perception of native phonemes, Lee (2001) found that Korean listeners do not show a critical change in their responses for the changes in duration. Lee's (2001) perception test used /sa-s*a/ stimuli, which were manipulated in the duration of frication noise (from 40 ms to 120 ms at 10 ms intervals). Her results showed that the duration factor did not change Korean listeners' responses (with only a 10% response change from 110-120 ms). When the duration is less than 50 ms, we find 20% mismatching responses to the stimuli, and for the rest of the stimuli, listeners perceived the stimuli 100% correctly. Based on the results, Lee (2001) concludes that Korean subjects are not sensitive in their perception of native /s/ and /s*/ sounds

(a) and (b) include the shortest /s/ from an onset cluster, while (c) and (d) now have frication noises that come from single onsets. The result shows that there is no response change with the /s/- replacement stimuli. This implies that the durational change does not play a strong role in the perception of English /s/ unless duration is manipulated beyond natural length. The second perception test in Jang (2002) gives us another important implication regarding English /s/ perception. In the second perception test, he replaced the vowel portion in both stressed syllables and unstressed syllables with the one from 'stark', which is stressed with cluster onset /s/. The paired stimuli differ only in the vowels, as shown in .

when only duration changes. The results indicate that /s-s*/ perception is very stable regardless of different duration of

Table 3. V-replacement stimuli used in Jang (2002)

frication noise when vowels are controlled. One implication we

Potentially maps into /s*/

find from the results is that fricative durations of 60-110ms may carry enough information to identify the fricatives. This

1

Word

interpretation is also consistent with Jongman's (1988) study, where English /s/ was perceived more than 80% correctly with

Stimuli

2

Potentially maps into /s/

's[a ]lace' (stressed)

's[a ]rcastic' (unstressed)

'st[a3]rk' (stressed)

'st[a3]rk' (stressed)

(a)'s[a3]lace'

(b)'s[a3]rcastic'

(c)'st[a1]rk'

(d)'st[a2]rk'

50 ms duration of fricative noise in his stimuli. Another study by Jang (2002) examined the durational cue in

The result shows no response change with the stimuli (a) and

the perception of English /s/ by Koreans, considering lexical

(c). This is expected if vowel context plays a role in the

stress effects on the English fricative. He conducted two

perception, because both vowels are stressed. If the vowel effect

perception experiments with stimuli where either the frication

is present in /s/ perception, the responses to stimulus (b) should

noise or the vowel was spliced between stress conditions. For

involve more /s*/ responses than the original, which again would

instance, one stimulus includes frication noise from a stressed

support the hypothesis that vowel context is indeed important in

syllable, keeping the vowel unstressed as it was. Another

[s] perception. Jang (2002) interpreted that vowel change in

stimulus keeps the vowel under stress and frication noise is

stimulus (b) lead the subjects to more /s*/ responses while the

replaced with frication noise from an unstressed syllable.