• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.165-169
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• 2014

Intelligibility of speech transmitted to listeners can significantly be degraded in noisy environments such as in auditorium and in train station due to ambient noises. Noise-masked speech signal is hard to be recognized by listeners. Among the conventional methods to improve speech intelligibility, consonant-vowel intensity ratio (CVR) approach reinforces the powers of overall consonants. However, excessively reinforced consonant is not helpful in recognition. Furthermore, only some of consonants are improved by the CVR approach. In this paper, we propose the corrective weighting (CW) approach that reinforces the powers of consonants according to syllable-type such as consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC), consonant-vowel (CV) and vowel-consonant (VC) in Korean differently, considering the level of listeners' recognition. The proposed CW approach was evaluated by the subjective test, Comparison Category Rating (CCR) test of ITU-T P.800, showed better performance, that is, 0.18 and 0.24 higher than the unprocessed CVR approach, respectively.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.207-207
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• 1996

The neutral tone is one of the most important distinguishing features in Beijing Mandarin, but there are two completely different views on its linguistic function: a special tone(Xu, 1980) versus weak stress(Chao, 1968). In this paper, the acoustic manifestation of the neutral tone will be explored to show that it is closely related to weak stress. 122 disyllabic words in which the second syllable carries the neutral tone, including 22 stress pairs, were uttered by a native male speaker of Beijing dialect and analysed by Kay Digital Sonagraph 5500-1. The results of the acoustic analysis are presented as follows: 1) The first two formants of the medial and the syllabic vowel moves towards that of central vowel with a greater magnitude in the syllable with the neutral tone than in the syllable with any of the four normal tones. Also the vowel ending, and nasal coda /n/ and / / in the syllable with the neutral tone tends to be deleted. 2) In the syllables with the neutral tone, there are strong carryover coarticulations between the medial and syllabic vowel and the preceding unvoiced consonant. In general, the vowel is affected to move towards the position of the central vowel with more greater magnitude by coronal consonant than by labial or velar consonant. 3) In the syllable with the neutral tone, when and only when it precedes a syllable with tone-4, the high vowel following [f], [ts'], [s], [ts'], [s], [tc'] or [c] tends to be voiceless. 4) It can be seen from the acoustical results of 22 stress pairs that the duration of the syllable with the neutral tone is on the average reduced to 55% of that of the syllable with the four normal tones, and the duration of the final in the syllable with neutral tone is on the average reduced to 45% of that of the final in the syllable with the four normal tones(Lin & Yan 1980). 5) The FO contour of the neutral tone is highly dependent on the preceding normal tone(Lin & Yan 1993). For a number of languages it has been found that the vowel space is reduced as the level of stress placed upon the vowel is reduced(Nord 1986). Therefore we reach the conclusion that the syllable with neutral tone is related to weak stress(Lin & Yan 1990). The neutral tone is not a special tone because the preceding normal tone.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.127-140
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• 2006

This study examined acoustic characteristics of 900 CV syllables produced by five English native speakers. Those target syllables were produced between the syllable /ba/ twenty times. The syllables were segmented and normalized by the maximum intensity value of each syllable and were divided into consonant or vowel sections by a few visible acoustic criteria. Intensity values were collected at 100 relative time points per syllable. Also, cumulative intensity values and consonant and vowel durations along with the ratio of a consonant to each syllable were measured using Praat scripts. Results showed as follows: Firstly, the consonantal section amounted to a quarter of the syllable in terms of both the cumulative intensity and duration. Secondly, the consonantal ratio by the cumulative intensity was similar to that by the duration. Finally, the sum of the cumulative intensity values in each syllable partially coincided with the consonant order by the current sonority scale. Further studies would be desirable on more reliable acoustical measurements and sophisticated perceptual experiments on the English syllables.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.251-256
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• 2005

When English monosyllabic words are adapted to the Korean language, the loanwords tend to carry extra syllables. The purpose of this paper is to find the syllable augmentation conditions in loanword adaptation and further to provide an algorithm to predict the syllable numbers of English monosylabic loanwords. Three syllable augmentation conditions are found as follows: 1) the existence of diphthong, 2) the existence of consonant clusters, and 3) the quality of the final consonant (and the preceding vowel). Based on these three conditions, an algorithm to predict the syllable number of English monosyllabic loanwords are proposed as three rules applied iteratively with ordering. In addition, the applications of the algorithm to data are given.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.160-166
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• 2002

In this paper, we implement a new vocabulary-independent speech recognition system that uses CV, VCCV, VC recognition unit. Since these recognition units are extracted in the trowel region of syllable, the segmentation is easy and robust. And in the case of not existing VCCV unit, the units are replaced by combining VC and CV semi-syllable model. Clustering of vowel group and applying combination rule to the substitution model in the case of not existing of VCCV model lead to 5.2% recognition performance improvement from 90.4% (Model A) to 95.6% (Model C) in the first candidate. The recognition results that is 98.8% recognition rate in the second candidate confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.137-154
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• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to analyze vowel lengthening triggered by resyllabification. In general, short vowels become long when a following consonant is deleted, as shown in stehli 'steel' > st$\bar{e}$li and *fimf 'five' > five. We can account for the phenomenon in a straightforward way within the framework of CV phonology (Clements & Keyser, 1983) : deletion of a coda consonant C slot and then the preceding vowel spreads onto it, resulting in a long vowel. The analysis, however, cannot hold for words like ealhes 'temple', where deletion of an onset segment eventually triggers vowel lengthening in the preceding syllable. In order to account for this, I propose resyllabification. That is, ealhes first becomes eales by /h/-deletion. Next, the /l/ in coda is resyllabified as the onset of the following syllable, leaving its C slot unoccupied. Finally, the vowel spreads onto the empty slot, producing a long vowel.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.264-269
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• 2008

When English disyllabic words are borrowed into the Korean language, the loanwords tend to have extra syllables. The purpose of this paper is to find the syllable increase conditions in loanword adaptation and further to provide an algorithm to predict the syllable numbers of English disyllabic loanwords. There are three syllable augmentation conditions. The presence of diphthongs and the existence of consonant clusters guarantee the increase of the syllable numbers in the English loanwords. Further, the quality of the final consonant (and the preceding vowel) sometimes trigger the increase of the syllable numbers. Based on the conditions, an algorithm composed of 4 rules are proposed in order to predict the number of syllables in English disyllabic loanwords.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.29-38
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• 2009

This study investigated the interaction between consonants and vowels in Korean syllable perception using a speeded classification task (Garner, 1978). Experiment 1 examined whether listeners analytically perceive the component phonemes in CV monosyllables when classification is based on the component phonemes (a consonant or a vowel) and observed a significant redundancy gain and a Garner interference effect. These results imply that the perception of the component phonemes in a CV syllable is not linear. Experiment 2 examined the further relation between consonants and vowels at a subphonemic level comparing classification times based on glottal features (aspiration and lax), on place of articulation features (labial and coronal), and on vowel features (front and back). Across all feature classifications, there were significant but asymmetric interference effects. Glottal feature.based classification showed the least amount of interference effect, while vowel feature.based classification showed moderate interference, and place of articulation feature-based classification showed the most interference. These results show that glottal features are more independent to vowels, but place features are more dependent to vowels in syllable perception. To examine the three-way interaction among glottal, place of articulation, and vowel features, Experiment 3 featured a modified Garner task. The outcome of this experiment indicated that glottal consonant features are independent to both the place of articulation and vowel features, but the place of articulation features are dependent to glottal and vowel features. These results were interpreted to show that speech perception is not abstract and discrete, but nonlinear, and that the perception of features corresponds to the hierarchical organization of articulatory features which is suggested in nonlinear phonology (Clements, 1991; Browman and Goldstein, 1989).

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.143-153
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• 2002

This study was designed to determine (1) the effects of the following stop consonant on the vowel length in isolated bi-syllabic words, (2) the mechanism which renders vowels longer in duration before lax stops than tense stops, (3) where the aspiratory interval is included, in the vowel portion or the preceding consonantal portion and (4) the influence of the preceding consonants upon the duration of the following vowel. Measurements were made of five timing variables on acoustic signals as three native Korean speakers uttered isolated bi-syllabic /VCV/ words in which the vowel was identical, /$\alpha$/, and the C slot was filled with bilabial stops. Findings: (1) the vowel length before the lax stops was significantly longer than before the tense stops, while the difference in the vowel duration between the tense stops was insignificant or negligible, (2) the vowel length varied as a function of the articulatory force of the following consonants, regardless of the phonological unit of syllable, (3) The aspiratory interval is interpreted as a portion of the preceding consonant and (4) The effects of the preceding consonants on the final vowel length were not rule-governed.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.251-268
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• 2017

This study is based on differences of syllable type between Korean and Chinese language pronunciation. For example, Nasal consonant ending 【n】 and 【${\eta}$】 reside in both Korean and Chinese phonetics simultaneously. However, in experiential training, Chinese learners will make errors in pronunciation of the Korean syllable nasal consonant ending like 【n】 and 【${\eta}$】. In the previous research, analysis of pronunciation errors were often based on the perspective of phonological system and combination of the phoneme rules. However, in this study, the analysis is based on the differences between Korean and Chinese syllables category to indicate the cause of pronunciation errors. The main findings of this study indicated that in the process of pronunciation of Chinese, nasal consonant syllable rime and its 【back】 tongue vowel are combined with each other. However, this rule does not apply in Korean pronunciation. Therefore, the Korean syllabic types like "앤, 응, 옹, 앵, 은, 온, 언" also exist in the Chinese language. When theChinese learners pronounce these types of syllables, the combination of the voweland nasal syllable rime rule will be taken, which will result in pronunciationerrors.