Patterns of consonant deletion in the word-internal onset position: Evidence from spontaneous Seoul Korean speech

Abstract

This study examined the deletion of onset consonant in the word-internal structure in spontaneous Seoul Korean speech. It used the dataset of speakers in their 20s extracted from the Korean Corpus of Spontaneous Speech (Yun et al., 2015). The proportion of deletion of word-internal onset consonants was analyzed using the linear mixed-effects regression model. The factors that promoted the deletion of onsets were primarily the types of consonants and their phonetic contexts. The results showed that onset deletion was more likely to occur for a lenis velar stop [k] than the other consonants, and in the phonetic contexts, when the preceding vowel was a low central vowel [a]. Moreover, some speakers tended to more frequently delete onset consonants (e.g., [k] and [n]) than other speakers, which reflected individual differences. This study implies that word-internal onsets undergo a process of gradient reduction within individuals' articulatory strategies.

Affixation effects on word-final coda deletion in spontaneous Seoul Korean speech

“…The Korean Corpus of Spontaneous Speech (Yun et al, 2016) showed high percentages of labeling consistency for the analysis of the present study. There were nine labelers for the corpus, and the percentage agreement of transcription was 98.1% for all segments (i.e., the detailed segments: stops, 99.1%; fricatives, 98.6%; affricates, 98.3%; nasals, 96.6%; liquids, 99.5%; and vowels, 97.7%) …”

“…The reduction processes of segments frequently occur in spontaneous or conversational speech (Bell et al, 2009;Dilts, 2013;Johnson, 2003;Keating, 1998;Kim et al, 2016;Raymon et al, 2006;Yao, 2001). Johnson (2003) showed the extreme version (i.e., deletion) of consonants and vowels in conversational American English; for example, the word "probably" underwent a series of reductions such as [prɑbəbli] -[prɑbli] -[prɑli] - [prɑ].…”