A study on infants' acquisition of fricatives in Japanese and Korean

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K13458
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba (2019-2023); Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (2017-2018)
• Principal Investigator: Hwang Hyun Kyung 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (80704858)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: acquisition / plosives / affricates / Japanese / Korean

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Based on a series of experiments in Japanese and Korean, this project revealed the following. (1) There was no significant difference in stop VOT (Voice Onset Time) between ADS (Adult-Directed Speech) and IDS (Infant-Directed Speech). (2) F0 (fundamental frequency) differences between voiced and voiceless stops were enhanced in IDS compared to ADS in Japanese. (3) In Korean, F0 rather than VOT turned out to be a more crucial cue in the distinction between lenis and aspirated stops though some inter-speaker differences were observed. (4) In Korean, acoustic differences between lenis and aspirated affricates were enhanced in IDS compared to ADS. (6) Regarding the discrimination of Korean affricates by infants, the month ages were revealed depending on the affricate pairs.

Free Research Field

音声学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

日本語と韓国語において音声実験および対乳児実験を行った。お母さんの発話の音響的特徴や乳児の子音弁別パターンをこれらの実験データに基づき分析を行った。今まで注目されていなかった、幼児の破擦音におけるlaryngeal contrastの獲得過程を検討するので阻害音の獲得の全体像に近づける点に独創性がある。また、タイ語など他言語との対照研究に拡大することができる点に学術上の意義がある。従って、言語特有の特徴と言語一般的な傾向の異同を検討することにつながり、類型論的・一般言語学的の上で重要な意義を有している。