편지글 읽기에 나타난 한국어 모음 /오/-/우/의 세대간 차이

Abstract

This study is a follow-up study of Han and Kang (2013) and Kang and Han (2013) which examined cross-generational changes in the Korean vowels /o/ and /u/ using acoustic analyses of the vowel formants of these two vowels, their Euclidean distances and the overlap fraction values generated in SOAM 2D (Wassink, 2006). Their results showed an on-going approximation of /o/ and /u/, more evident in female speakers and non-initial vowels. However, these studies employed non-words in a frame sentence. To see the extent to which these two vowels are merged in real words in spontaneous speech, we conducted an acoustic analysis of the formants of /o/ and /u/ produced by two age groups of female speakers while reading a letter sample. The results demonstrate that 1) the younger speakers employed mostly F2 but not F1differences in the production of /o/ and /u/; 2) the Euclidean distance of these two vowels was shorter in non-initial than initial position, but there was no difference in Euclidean distance between the two age groups (20’s vs. 40-50’s); 3) overall,/o/ and /u/ were more overlapped in non-initial than initial position, but in non-initial position, younger speakers showed more congested distribution of the vowels than in older speakers.