Variable lenition of intervocalic lenis stops in Seoul Korean: A feature-cue approach

This study examines the intervocalic lenition of lenis stops in Seoul Korean within the feature-cue-based LEXI framework (Huilgol et al. 2019; Yun et al. 2025), analyzing data from the Speech Corpus of Reading-Style Standard Korean. Acoustic landmarks, including stop closure and release, were annotated alongside deviations from expected cues, such as cue deletion or insertion. Lenition events are identified by deletion of stop closure and release cues (-x, <Sr>-x) and insertion of a glide cue (<G>- + ). Results show that velar stops are much more susceptible to lenition (75.7%) than labial (30.0%) or coronal stops (24.4%). The height of both preceding and following vowels significantly affects lenition frequency, with low vowels serving as the strongest triggers and a notable interaction between vowel positions. Analysis of speaker groups reveals that males are generally more prone to intervocalic stop lenition than females, and among females, older speakers lenite more frequently than younger ones. This contrasts with the common sociolinguistic pattern of younger females leading sound change, suggesting that in this community, lenition may carry social stigma or be subject to standardization pressures.