A Phonetic Characterization of Release and Nonrelease: The Case of Korean and English

Abstract

In this paper we propose that "release" and "nonrelease" are associated neither with oral release and oral closure of oral stops nor with the presence/absence of oral burst, as usually assumed in the literature. We claim that they are associated with the presence/absence of a pulmonic egressive airstream flowing through the oral tract after the removal of oral closure. Under this new definition of "release" and "nonrelease", we can correctly describe the acoustic implementations of coda consonants in Korean and English like the following: Korean coda consonants are always unreleased, whereas English coda consonants are either released or unreleased.