Segmental Effects on F0 contour in English in comparison with Korean

Abstract

Kim, Mi-Ryoung. 2003. Segmental effects on F0 contour in English in comparison with Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 28-2, 271-294. This paper examines the effects of initial/final consonant and vowel types on F0. The results are compared with the Korean data presented in M.-R. Kim (2001). In English, all three factors showed an intrinsic and universal effects on F0. Noticeable differences between the English and Korean data were observed for the effect of INITIAL CONSONANT on F0 in terms of the spectral and temporal magnitude. The effects in English were localized and thus phonetically accounted for. In contrast, those in Korean showed a consonant-tone interaction beyond a local pitch-perturbation. For the source of the effects of INITIAL CONSONANT on F0, I suggest that both languages show a raising or lowering F0 effect due to consonantal voicing. However, voicing triggers tonal differentiation (i.e., voiceless-H and voiced-L) in Korean but not in English. (Korea Cyber University)