Abstract
It has been claimed that Korean mid-vocalic voiceless unaspirated lax stops are phonetically realized with voicing throughout the oral closure phase. Acoustic measurements were undertaken to examine the claim with four Korean native speakers using /$V_1CV_2$/ words where the vowel ($V_1\;=\;V_2$) was /i, a, u/ and the C was voiceless unaspirated lax stops /p, t, k/. Findings: (1) During mid-vocalic stops /k/ and /p/ the vowel /u/ was accompanied generally by a significant increase in voice cessation time as percentage of the oral closure interval (PCT) than the vowel /a/, regardless of subjects, whereas in mid-vocalic alveolar stop /t/ the effects of vowels on PCT were subject-dependent, (2) The effects of vowels on PCT were significantly greater in mid-vocalic /k/ than /p/, regardless of subjects, (3) The mean PCT, averaged across six tokens, ranged from 17% to100%, giving overall mean 61% in which the standard deviation was ${\pm}30$, and (4) Overall % of the total of mid-vocalic unaspirated lax stops were produced with a substantial period of devocing and voicing lag. Considering these results, it is difficult to agree with the existing claims that Korean voiceless unaspirated lax stops are phonetically realized with voicing throughout the oral closure phase. Other phonetic variables, including the durations of pre/post-stop vowels, voice onset time, voice cessation time, and the duration of oral closure, were measured.