earticle

영어

Previous literature proposed that the ongoing VOT merger between aspirated and lenis stops in Korean is prosodically conditioned. To assess this prosodic account across a variety of prosodic positions, twelve younger speakers were recorded using a novel method of eliciting the stops in four positions with different boundary strengths, distributed over single utterances under broad focus. Bolstering previous findings, the merger occurred phrase-initially (i.e., utterance-initially, IP-initially, AP-initially), while the contrast was maintained by clear separation of F0. Notably, the pivotal role of F0 was also observed phrase-medially (i.e., Wd-initially) in the presence of the VOT cues retaining the feature primacy, even influencing the pitch range of the entire phrase. Additionally, the cue-shifting from a VOT-based to an F0-based system was more advanced in females’ speech. The magnitude of cue-shifting is discussed in light of boundary strengths, focusing on how variant forms involved in ongoing sound change interact with speech prosody.