Acoustic matching and phonotactic expectations in the adaptation of English /s/ into Korean

• 영문명: Acoustic matching and phonotactic expectations in the adaptation of English /s/ into Korean
• 발행기관: 경희대학교 언어정보연구소
• 저자명: Xinyi Zhang 김윤정(Yun Jung Kim) 오미라(Mira Oh)
• 간행물 정보: 『언어연구』제40권 제3호, 509~532쪽, 전체 24쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2023.12.31

영문 초록

This study aims to demonstrate that the adaptation of loanwords cannot be solely explained by speech perception. Specifically, it focuses on the adaptation of the English /s/ sound into Korean. In English, a singleton /s/ is loaned as tense [s*], while a preconsonantal /s/ is adapted as lenis [s] in Korean. Kim and Curtis (2002) and Kang (2008) provided an acoustic cue-based analysis for the adaptation of English /s/, considering duration and voice quality, respectively. To investigate the perception of English /s/ by Korean listeners, we conducted a perception experiment. We examined the impact of prosodic factors, such as domain-edge position and lexical stress, on the perception of /s/. Our findings revealed diverse perception patterns depending on stress and position within a word. Specifically, /s/ in a stressed syllable and /s/ in a word-edge position were more likely to be perceived as tense [s*]. Contrary to Kim and Curtis (2002), the duration of English /s/ alone was insufficient to explain perception patterns. Based on our varied perception patterns, we argue that categorical adaptation of the singleton /s/ as tense [s*] and the preconsonantal /s/ as lenis [s] does not solely reflect speech perception. Instead, we propose that loanword adaptation is a process driven by top-down/phonotactic expectations and acoustic matching, with the goal of maximizing perceptual similarity between the source word and the loanword. This is consistent with the findings of Daland et al. (2019).

목차

1. Introduction

2. Background for the adaptation of English /s/ into Korean

3. Perception experiment

4. Speech perception and loanword adaptation: Interplay between acoustic details and phonotactic expectations

5. Conclusion

References

키워드

loanword adaptation English /s/ lenis /s/ tense /s*/ Korean perceptual similarity