Effects of morphological structure on intergestural timing in different prosodic-structural contexts in Korean

Abstract

This EMA study explores effects of morphological structure on intergestural timing in different prosodicstructural contexts in Korean by examining articulatory realization of homophonous pairs of different underlying morphological structures (tautomorphemic (C1)V1C2V2 vs. heteromorphemic (C1)V1C2+V2, where ‘+’=a morpheme boundary). The intergestural timing of C2V2 was found to be more stable in C2V2 than in C2+V2 in all prosodic contexts. The morphological effect was also observed with V1C2 timing. It was more stable in (C1)V1C2+V2 than in (C1)V1C2V2, which was augmented under focusinduced prominence. This indicates that the intergestural timing of V1-to-C2 gesture became more stabilized when C2 is underlyingly syllabic-coda as in the hetero-morphemic condition ((C1)V1C2+V2). The observed stability difference as a function of morphological structure and its interaction with prominence was consistent phrase-initially and phrase-medially, though with some degree of difference. The results demonstrate that gestures are coordinated in reference to the interaction between underlying morphological structure and prosodic structure.