Systematic variation in the articulation of the Korean liquid across prosodic positions

This study examined articulatory composition of the Korean liquid in the phonological contexts that condition its allophony using real-time MRI. During the liquid, tongue tip constriction, tongue body raising and tongue root fronting motions were observed. Inter-vocalic liquids (flap percept) were produced with shorter tongue tip movement duration and smaller displacement than onset or coda liquids (lateral percept). Moreover, tongue root fronting during the liquid was associated with the smaller displacement in the flap contexts (inter-vocalic) than the lateral contexts (onset and coda). Interestingly, there was no tongue body raising observed in the flap context, suggesting that the allophony between lateral (onset and coda) and flap (inter-vocalic) is not only attributable to the overall gestural reduction, but also to a categorical distinction in gestural composition. This compositional difference challenges phonetic/phonological models that view position-sensitive allophony as resulting exclusively from dynamic variation of the abstract component gestures.