Past Event

Laryngeal classification of Korean fricatives: evidence from sound change and dialect variation

Dr. Yoonjung Kang
(University of Toronto)

Korean has a three-way contrast of voiceless stops among aspirated, lenis, and fortis stops. Recent studies converge to show that Seoul Korean is undergoing a tonogenetic sound change whereby the VOT distinction between lenis and aspirated stops is neutralized and the tone on the following vowel becomes the primary phonetic distinction. Korean fricatives, on the hand, show a two-way contrast between a fortis and a “non-fortis” fricative. The laryngeal classification of the non-fortis fricative has been a topic of much debate, as its phonetic patterning is ambiguous between aspirated and lenis categories. In this talk, I will bring additional evidence to the debate by examining the patterning of the fricatives in the on-going sound change in Seoul and two major North Korean dialects as spoken by ethnic Koreans in China.

About the Speaker

Dr. Yoonjung Kang received her PhD from MIT in 2000. She has wide-ranging research interests in phonetics and phonology, especially in speech perception, sound change, and second language phonology.