A Language-Specific Physiological Motor Constraint in Korean Non-Assimilating Consonant Sequences

This paper explores two articulatory characteristics of inter-consonantal coordination observed in lingual-lingual (/kt/, /ks/) and labial-lingual (/pt/) sequences. Using electromagnetic articulometry (EMMA), temporal aspects of the lip movement and lingual movement (of the tongue tip and the tongue dorsum) were examined. Three sequences (/ks/, /kt/, /pt/) were investigated in two respects: gestural overlap in C1C2 and formation duration of coronals in C2 (/t/ or /s/). Results are summarized as follows. First, in a sequence of two stop consonants gestural overlap did not vary with order contrast or a low-level motor constraint on lingual articulators. Gestural overlap between two stop consonants was similar in both /kt/ (lingual-lingual; back-to-front) and /pt/ (labial-lingual; front-to-back). Second, gestural overlap was not simply constrained by place of articulation. Two coronals (/s/ and /t/) shared the same articulator, the tongue tip, but they showed a distinctive gestural overlap pattern with respect to /k/ in C1 (/ks/ (less overlap) < /kt/ (more overlap)). Third, temporal duration of the tongue tip gesture varied as a function of manner of articulation of the target segment in C2 (/ks/ (shorter) < /kt/ (longer)) as well as a function of place of articulation of the segmental context in C1 (/pt/ (shorter) < /kt/ (longer)). There are several implications associated with the results from Korean non-assimilating contexts. First, Korean can be better explained in the way of its language-specific gestural pattern; gestural overlap in Korean is not simply attributed to order contrast (front-to-back vs. back-to-front) or a physiological motor constraint on lingual articulators (lingual-lingual vs. nonlingual-lingual). Taking all factors into consideration, inter-gestural coordination is influenced not only by C1 (place of articulation) but also C2 (manner of articulation). Second, the jaw articulator could have been a factor behind a distinctive gestural overlap pattern in different C1C2 sequences (/ks/ (less overlap) vs. /kt/ and /pt/ (more overlap)). A language-specific gestural pattern occurred with reference to a physiological motor constraint on the jaw articulator.