Perception of English voiceless alveolar and postalveolar fricatives by Korean speakers.

Abstract

Korean lacks place contrast of coronal fricatives before i. Yet three alveopalatal fricatives, fortis, lenis, and labialized, occur in this context. Fortis and lenis alveopalatals are intermediate between English alveolar and postalveolar in spectral peak location, though fortis has peak at higher frequencies, and thus is closer to English s. Peak location of labialized alveopalatal is the lowest, largely overlapping with that of English ∫. The presence of L1 contrast among alveopalatals seems to facilitate Korean listeners’ perception of English si-∫i contrast, especially that between plain and labialized alveopalatals. Korean listeners were presented with eight-step continuum of English si (step 1) to ∫i (step 8), and asked to identify them with an L1 category. The percentage of fortis answer gradually decreased from steps 1 to 4, as lenis answer gradually increased. Labialized answer appeared below 3% until step 4, and increased above 68% at step 5, indicating categorical change of the percept from plain to labialized alveopalatals. There was no categorical change from fortis to lenis, presumably because Korean fortis-lenis contrast involves complex acoustic cues such as vowel f0, frication duration, and amplitude difference between harmonics, in addition to frication noise frequency.