Effect of Pitch on Japanese Word-initial Stop Production by Korean Speakers

This study investigated the relationship between the production of Japanese stops by Korean speakers and word pitch pattern. Both Korean and Japanese languages have stops, but they have different phonetic characteristics: Japanese has voiced and voiceless stops whereas Korean has three stops (aspirated, tense and lax), but no contrast in voicing. Korean stops are also associated with the pitch of the following vowel, and the pitch may be used in perception to differentiate stops as well as VOT in some accents; i.e. the pitch following aspirated and tense stops is higher than the pitch following lax stops. The study found that voicing mistakes in Japanese stop production by Korean speakers was associated with word pitch pattern. The results also indicated that Korean speakers used pitch patterns associated with Korean stops in L2 Japanese production.