Phonological Preparation in Korean: Phoneme, or Syllable or Another Unit?

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Speech Production
• Phonological Processing

Background:

• Understanding the basic units of spoken word planning is crucial for psycholinguistics.
• Previous research has explored phonological preparation (PP) units with varying results across languages.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify the primary phonological preparation (PP) unit in spoken word production in Korean.
• To investigate whether the initial phoneme, consonant-vowel (CV) body, or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllable serves as the key unit for planning.

Main Methods:

• Employed the form preparation paradigm with 23 native Korean speakers.
• Participants named pictures presented in homogenous lists (sharing initial phoneme, CV body, or CVC syllable) and heterogenous lists.

Main Results:

• Naming speed was significantly faster when the initial CV body or CVC syllable was shared compared to heterogenous lists.
• No significant form preparation effect was observed when only the initial phoneme was shared.

Conclusions:

• The initial CV body, not the initial phoneme, functions as the primary phonological preparation unit in Korean spoken word production.
• This suggests a planning strategy based on a body-coda structure, influenced by Korean's CV structure prevalence and literacy practices.