An acoustic, aerodynamic and perceptual investigation of word-initial denasalization in Korean
Korean nasals /m/ and /n/ are generally considered by Korean phoneticians to be hardly different from the corresponding English sounds, but those in word-initial position are often perceived as plosives by native speakers of English. This had been noted by only a few previous observers, and investigated on a very limited scale. In this study, various experimental methods were employed in systematic analyses of the production and acoustic form of word-initial /m/ and /n/ from fluent connected speech collected from a relatively large number of informants, and corresponding perception tests were conducted with groups of Korean and English listeners. Auditory and spectrographic analyses confirmed that the segments were commonly âdenasalizedâ. They display characteristics widely different from those of sonorant nasals, lacking the nasal formants commonly seen in spectrograms; in most cases they were more similar to voiced plosives, many tokens even showing plosive-like release bursts. Spectral analyses confirmed that denasalized nasals are significantly different from sonorant nasals throughout the whole frequency range but remain somewhat different from voiced plosives in the low and high frequency regions.
Kim, Y. S.
An acoustic, aerodynamic and perceptual investigation of word-initial denasalization in Korean. Korean nasals /m/ and /n/ are generally considered by Korean phoneticians to be hardly different from the corresponding English sounds, but those in word-initial position are often perceived as plosives by native speakers of English. This had been noted by only a few previous observers, and investigated on a very limited scale. In this study, various experimental methods were employed in systematic analyses of the production and acoustic form of word-initial /m/ and /n/ from fluent connected speech collected from a relatively large number of informants, and corresponding perception tests were conducted with groups of Korean and English listeners. Auditory and spectrographic analyses confirmed that the segments were commonly âdenasalizedâ. They display characteristics widely different from those of sonorant nasals, lacking the nasal formants commonly seen in spectrograms; in most cases they were more similar to voiced plosives, many tokens even showing plosive-like release bursts. Spectral analyses confirmed that denasalized nasals are significantly different from sonorant nasals throughout the whole frequency range but remain somewhat different from voiced plosives in the low and high frequency regions.
acoustic perceptual investigation word_initial korean korean nasal generally_consider korean hardly different correspond english sound word_initial position often perceive native_speaker_english note previous observer investigate limited scale study various experimental_method employ systematic_analysis production acoustic form word_initial fluent connect_speech collect relatively large_number informant correspond perception test conduct group korean english listener auditory analysis confirm segment commonly display characteristic widely different nasal lack nasal commonly see case similar voice many token even show like release burst spectral analysis confirm nasal significantly_different nasal throughout whole frequency range remain somewhat different voiced low_high frequency region