The perception of Korean stops by native speakers of Spanish

Abstract

Whereas Spanish word-initial stops can be pre-voiced or voiceless, Korean word-initial stops are always voiceless, its three-way contrast being distinguished partly by short- vs. long-lag VOT. In intervocalic position, Spanish voiced stops become spirantized and Korean lenis stops become voiced, resulting in complicated phonological mappings among the stops in the two languages. In this exploratory study we tested the perceptual assimilation and discrimination of Korean stops by native Spanish (1) naïve listeners and (2) L2 learners of Korean. It was found that both groups of listeners predominantly (roughly 70-90%) assimilated all Korean stops to a Spanish voiceless stop category, with the only major exception being intervocalic lenis stops. Differences between the listener groups were minor in the perception of word-initial stops, but much clearer in the case of intervocalic stops, which we attribute to effects of L2 experience. Discrimination accuracy was largely predicted by perceptual assimilation patterns.