• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.364-364
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• 2000

It has been widely discussed in phonology that syllable structure of mother tongue influences one's acquisition of foreign language. However, the topic was hardly examined experimentally. So, we investigated effects of Korean syllable structure when Korean speakers pronounce English words, especially focusing on consonant strings that are not allowed in Korean. In the experiment, all the subjects are divided into 3 groups, that is, native, experienced, and inexperienced speakers. Native group consists of 1 male English native speaker. Experienced and inexperienced are each composed of 3 male Korean speakers. These 2 groups are divided by the length of residence in the country using English as a native language. 41 mono-syllable words are prepared considering the position (onset vs. coda), characteristic (stops, affricates, fricatives), and number of consonant. Then, the length of the consonant cluster is measured. To eliminate tempo effect, the measured length is normalized using the length of the word 'say' in the carrier sentence. Measurement of consonant cluster is the relative time period between the initiation of energy (onset I coda) which is acoustically representative of noise (consonant portion) and voicing. bar (vowel portion) in a syllable. Statistical method is used to estimate the differences among 3 groups. For each word, analysis of variance (ANDY A) and Post Hoc tests are carried out.

• MALSORI
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• no.56
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• pp.1-13
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• 2005

This study examined the speech intelligibility of one-syllable words with phonetic contrasts and analyzed segmental factors that can predict the overall speech intelligibility in hearing-impaired adults. To identify the speech error characteristics, a Korean word list was audio-recorded by 7 hearing-impaired adults, and 35 listeners selected the heard word out of 5 choices. Based in part on previous studies of speech of the hearing impaired, the word list consisted of monosyllabic consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) real word pairs. Stimulus words included 77 phonetic contrast pairs. The results showed that the percentage of errors in final position (coda) contrast was higher than in any other position in syllable. And the intelligibility deficit factors of phonetic contrast in the hearing-impaired were analyzed through stepwise regression analysis. The overall intelligibility was predicted by the error rate of manner contrast at coda, voicing contrast (homorganic triplets) at onset and high-low contrast at nucleus.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.85-95
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• 2000

In this paper, the H1*-H2* measure is introduced and exact procedures for obtaining the H1*-H2* value are fully specified, The H1*-H2* measure (a corrected difference in dB between the first and second harmonics) has been devised to provide an acoustic correlate of the phonation mode of a vowel following a consonant. With this measure, we can investigate the phonation mode of a vowel that is free from the F1 amplitude perturbation effect caused by the preceding consonant, which is especially salient at the voicing onset position of the vowel. For identical research purposes, on the other hand, the H1-H2 measure (the observed difference in dB between the first and second harmonic) has been employed in many previous studies. This paper compares these two measures by illustrating experimental results of exploring post-release phonation modes of vowels following the different manner classes of stop consonants in Korean $\square$i.e., the tense, lenis, and aspirated stops.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.85-92
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• 2012

It is a well-known phenomenon that vowel duration in English is generally longer before a voiced stop than a voiceless one. Past research has postulated that the closure duration of the voiceless stop is generally longer than that of the voiced stop and that the duration of a preceding vowel is determined complementarily by the closure duration of the stop. To shed further light on the phenomenon, this study examined fourteen native speakers of American English who read the monosyllabic words [bVC] (V = [i, ɪ, eɪ, ɛ, æ, ʌ, ɑ], C = [t, d]). First, we found that mean vowel duration was 38 ms longer before the voiced stop than the voiceless (mean duration ratio = 1.24). Second, mean closure duration of the voiced stop was only shorter by 5 ms compared to the voiceless stop (mean duration ratio = 0.97). Therefore, for our subjects, vowel duration was not determined complementarily by the closure duration of the following stop. Third, vowels with longer inherent durations (viz., tense, diphthong, and low vowels) tended to show larger duration ratios in the voiced and voiceless contexts than the vowels with shorter durations (viz., lax vowels). This indicates that the lengthening of inherently shorter vowels before a voiced stop is limited in order to avoid overlapping with longer vowels in the duration range. Fourth, there was no significant gender difference in vowel duration ratios in the contexts of voiced and voiceless stops. Finally, considerable individual differences were found in the vowel and consonant duration ratios.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.455-464
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• 2009

Based on the observation that Korean speakers of English have difficulties in producing English fricatives, a perception experiment was designed to investigate whether Korean speakers also have difficulties perceiving English labial consonants including fricatives. Forty Korean college students were asked to perform a multiple-choice identification test. The consonant perception test consisted of nonce words which contained English labial consonants [p, b, f, v] in 4 different prosodic locations: initial onset position, intervocalic position before stress, intervocalic position after stress, and final coda position. The general perception pattern was that the mean accuracy rates were higher in strong position like CV and VCVV than in weak position like VC and VVCV. The difficulties in perceiving the English targets resulted mainly from bidirectional manner confusion between stop and fricative across all prosodic locations. The other types of misidentification were due to place confusion as well as voicing confusion. Place confusion was generated mostly by the target [f] in all prosodic position due to acoustic properties. Voicing confusion was heavily influenced by prosodic position. The misperception of the participants was accounted for by phonetic properties and/or the participants' native language properties.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.87-97
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to analyze the speech duration in Korean-speaking aphasics. Five patients with nonfluent aphasia (2 with traumatic brain injury and 3 with strokes) and five normal adults participated in this experiment. The mean age in patients with nonfluent aphasia was $45.8\pm2.3$ years and $47.4\pm2.3$ years for the normal adults. The Computerized Speech Lab was used to evaluate the acoustic characteristics of the subjects. Voice onset time, vowel duration, total duration, hold and consonant duration were evaluated for the monosyllabic and the polysyllabic words. The patients with nonfluent aphasia did not show the voicing bar on hold area, however, it was seen in the normal persons in the intervocalic position. Explosion duration of glottalized stops in the intervocalic position was significantly prolonged in nonfluent aphasics in comparison with the normal persons. This suggestes that the laryngeal adjustment is disturbed in these patients. Consonant duration, vowel duration, and total duration of the polysyllabic words were significantly longer in the patients with nonfluent aphasia than those of the normal persons. These results demonstrate the disturbances in controlling articulatory muscles during sound production in patients with nonfluent aphasia. The objective and quantitative analysis based on the acoustic characteristics of nonfluent aphasics, will be very useful in therapeutic planning and on the the effects of speech therapy.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference of vowel duration due to the voicing of word-final consonants in English and its relation to the types of word-final consonants (stops vs. fricatives), (partial) devoicing, and stop releasing. Addtionally, this study attempts to interpret the findings from the functional view that the vowels before voiced consonants are produced with a longer duration in order to enhance the salience of the voicing of word-final consonants. This study conducted a recording experiment with English native speakers, and measured the vowel duration, the degree of (partial) devoicing of word-final voiced consonants and the release of word-final stops. First, the results showed that the ratio of the duration difference was not influenced by the types of word-final consonants. Second, it was revealed that the higher the degree of (partial) devoicing of word-final voiced consonants, the longer vowel duration before word-final voiced consonants, which was compatible with the prediction based on the functional view. Lastly, the ratio of the duration difference was greater when the word-final stops were uttered with the release compared to when uttered without the release, which was not consistent with the functional view. These results suggest that it is not sufficient enough to explain the voicing effect by its function of distinguishing the voicing of word-final consonants.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.195-203
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• 2014

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of phonation types ([+/- aspirated], [+/- fortis]) on aerodynamic measures with Korean bilabial stops. Sixty-three healthy young adults (30 males, 33 females) participated to evaluate the VOEF (Voicing Efficiency) tasks with bilabial stop consonants /$p^h$/, /p/, /p'/ using Phonatory Aerodynamic System (PAS) Model 6600 (Kay PENTAX Corp, Lincoln Park, NJ). All VOEF measures were significantly influenced by phonation types except RANP(pitch range)(p <.01). For sound pressure, maximum SPL, mean SPL, and Mean SPL during Voicing have been shown to be significantly greatest in fortis stop /p'/ than aspirated /$p^h$/ and lenis stop /p/ (p<.001). On the other hand, mean pitch after lenis stop was significantly lower than after aspirated and fortis stops (p<.001). Peak expiratory airflow, Target airflow, and FVC (Expiratory volume) were significantly lowest in fortis stop /p'/ which might be associated with higher aerodynamic resistance while peak air pressure and mean peak air pressure during closure were significantly lower in lenis stop /p/. Additionally, AEFF (Aerodynamic efficiency) was significantly higher in fortis stop /p'/ than lenis stop /p/ as well as aspirated stop /$p^h$/ (p<.001). Thus, sound pressure, airflow parameters, and aerodynamic resistance made crucial roles in distinguishing fortis /p'/ from lenis stop /p/ and aspirated. Additionally, pitch and subglottal air pressure parameters were important aerodynamic characteristics in distinguishing lenis /p/ from fortis /p'/ and aspirated /$p^h$/. Therefore, accurate aspirated /p/ stop consonant should be elicited when collecting the airflow, intraoral pressure related data with patients with voice disorders in order to enhance the reliability and relevance or validity of aerodynamic measures using PAS.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1990.07a
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• pp.535-538
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• 1990

The main problem in speech recognition is the enormous variability in acoustic signals due to complex but predictable contextual effects. Especially in plosive consonants it is very difficult to find invariant cue due to various contextual effects, but humans use these contextual effects as helpful information in plosive consonant recognition. In this paper we experimented on three artificial neural net models for the recognition of plosive consonants. Neural Net Model I used "Multi-layer Perceptron ". Model II used a variation of the "Self-organizing Feature Map Model". And Model III used "Interactive and Competitive Model" to experiment contextual effects. The recognition experiment was performed on 9 Korean plosive consonants. We used VCV speech chains for the experiment on contextual effects. The speech chain consists of Korean plosive consonants /g, d, b, K, T, P, k, t, p/ (/ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ/) and eight Korean monothongs. The inputs to Neural Net Models were several temporal cues - duration of the silence, transition and vot -, and the extent of the VC formant transitions to the presence of voicing energy during closure, burst intensity, presence of asperation, amount of low frequency energy present at voicing onset, and CV formant transition extent from the acoustic signals. Model I showed about 55 - 67 %, Model II showed about 60%, and Model III showed about 67% recognition rate.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.65-73
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• 2010

No systematic study has examined the relationship between acoustic variability and /w/-deletion in Korean. Most previous studies on /w/-deletion have described /w/-variants in categorical terms, i.e., /w/-deletion or a full glide (Silva 1991; Kang 1997; Yun 2005). These studies are based either on impressionistic judgements without a systematic acoustic analysis or on an exclusive examination of internal acoustic variability of /w/ such as F2, without examining the availability of external acoustic cues such as voice onset time (VOT) of a consonant. However, given the important influence of the adjacent sounds for segmental realizations, it is necessary to examine possible acoustic variability in the differentiation of /w/-variants. The present study aims to address this issue by evaluating the acoustic properties of /CwV/, including VOT and formant transitions. In the analysis, 432 tokens in word-initial position (216 /CwV/ words and 216 /CV/ words) were examined. The results indicated that /w/ exhibits four different variants. Firstly, /w/ is realized as a full glide. Such a variant is characterized by a VOT difference and significant differences in F1 and F2 at voicing onset compared with /CwV/ and /CV/. Secondly, /w/ can be maintained but coarticulated with the following vowel. Such a variant is demonstrated by differences in VOT and F2. Thirdly, /w/ is categorically deleted, which is indicated by the absence of any differences in VOT, F1, and F2. Fourthly, /w/ overlaps a consonant. The F2 difference without VOT difference is manifested in the variant. In contrast to VOT, F1, and F2 differences, pitch plays little role in determining /w/-variants in Korean. These findings suggest that allophones can be produced along a gradient continuum of acoustic cues, exhibiting sounds intermediate between the full realization of a given category and its deletion. Furthermore, each variant can be cued by a set of internal and external acoustic cues.