Geminate consonants in Korean

Geminate consonants in Korean

  A correlation between phonetics and phonology on geminates in Korean was sought and investigated. Two native Korean speakers read 15 pairs of one- and disyllabic real words in a carrier sentence at both fast and slow rates, three times each. The consonant, vowel, and word durations of the singletons in CVC contexts and contrasting geminates and assimilated geminates in CVCCV contexts were measured. Consonant and vowel durations are cues for discriminating the singletons from two kinds of geminates regardless of the rate of speech. Rate of speech, especially a slow rate, affects the geminates/assimilated geminates distinction.