• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.105-116
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• 2004

The fundamental frequency of a vowel is known to be affected by the identity of the preceding consonant. The general agreement is that strong consonants trigger higher F0 than weak consonants. However, there has been a disagreement on the shape of this segmentally affected F0 contours. Some studies report that shapes of contours are differentiated based on the consonant type, but others regard this observation as misleading. This research attempts to resolve this controversy by investigating shapes and slopes of F0 contours of Korean word level speech data produced by four male speakers. Instead of entirely relying on traditional human intuition and judgment, I employed an automatic F0 contour analysis technique known as tilt parameterisation (Taylor 2000). After necessary manipulation of an F0 contour of each data token, various parameters are collapsed into a single tilt value which directly indicates the shape of the contour. The result, in terms of statistical inference, shows that it is not viable to conclude that the type of consonant is significantly related to the shape of F0 contour. A supplementary measurement is also made to see if the slope of each contour bears meaningful information. Unlike shapes themselves, slopes are suspected to be practically more practical for consonantal differentiation, although confirmation is required through further refined experiments.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.75-83
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• 1999

This paper proposes a new F0 contour model for intonation control in speech synthesis. We assume that the F0 contour of an utterance can be described using a sequence of time-overlapping events, which determine the fluctuation of a given F0 contour, described by asymmetric Gaussian functions. In addition, We propose a parameter estimation algorithm for the proposed model. The proposed model is not developed with a particular phonological theory in mind, and can be used in both F0 contour analysis and synthesis. For testing our F0 model, we collected 500 sentences from various genres and built a corresponding speech corpus uttered by a professional female announcer. As n result of F0 resynthesis experiment using the proposed model, the RMSE was 7.87Hz for given speech corpus.

• MALSORI
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• no.35_36
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• pp.131-143
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• 1998

This study describes an algorithm for the F0 contour generation system for Korean sentences and its evaluation results. 400 K-ToBI labeled utterances were used which were read by one male and one female announcers. F0 contour generation system uses two classification trees for prediction of K-ToBI labels for input text and 11 regression trees for prediction of F0 values for the labels. Evaluation results of the system showed 77.2% prediction accuracy for prediction of IP boundaries and 72.0％ prediction accuracy for AP boundaries. Information of voicing and duration of the segments was not changed for F0 contour generation and its evaluation. Evaluation results showed 23.5Hz RMS error and 0.55 correlation coefficient in F0 generation experiment using labelling information from the original speech data.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.117-126
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• 2005

This study investigates the prosodic characteristics of Korean through the analysis of a large database. One female and one male speakers each read 650 sentences and they were segmentally and prosodically labeled. Statistical analyses were done on these utterances regarding the tonal pattern and the size of prosodic units, correlation between the size of higher level prosodic units and the number of lower level prosodic units. and the slope and F0 of the falling and rising contours of an accentual phrase. The results showed that the duration and the number of words and syllables of a prosodic unit were significantly different not only between speakers but also between its positions within a higher level prosodic nit. The munber of a prosodic unit showed a high correlation with the duration and the number of syllables of its higher level units. The slope of the falling contour within an accentual phrase was inversely Proportional to the number of its syllables. The slope was different depending on the first tone type of an accentual phrase, which could be explained with the F0 rising and the different amount of rising between tones when an accentual phrase starts with an H tone. The slope of the falling contour across an accentual phrase boundary showed a constant and larger value compared to one within an accentual phrase. The rising contours in the beginning and end of an accentual Phrase were similar in their slopes but they differ in the amount of F0 change : the former showed a larger amount of change. The slope of the rising contour which forms an accentual Phrase on its own was inversely Proportional to the number of its syllables.

• Communications of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.731-740
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• 2002

We derive the generalized Hermite interpolation by using the contour integral and extend the generalized Hermite interpolation to obtain the sampling expansion involving derivatives for band-limited functions f, that is, f is an entire function satisfying the following growth condition ｜f(ｚ)｜$\leq$ A exp($\sigma$｜y｜) for some A, $\sigma$ > 0 and any ｚ=$\varkappa$ + iy∈C.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the pitch pattern of Korean accentual phrases produced by Chinese Korean-learners in the reading of a Korean text. Korean accentual phrase is determined by a specific F0 contour. And the pitch contour of APs differ depending on their length and the nature of initial segment. In order to examine if Chinese speakers are also aware such a phonetic properties, we have examined the AP pitch contours produced by 15 Chinese speakers differing in proficiency, and compared them to pitch contours produced by six Korean native speakers. The results show that Chinese speakers' pitch errors were observed in initial segment-tone interaction and in type of pitch patterns. However, even though Chines speakers produced the same type of pitch patterns, internal tonal modulation differs from native speakers. Finally, on the basis of theses results, we proposed a teaching method that visualizes the F0 contour.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.73-85
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• 2009

This paper introduces the technique of synthesizing and evaluating human utterances with exaggerated or atypical prosody. Prosody exaggeration can be implemented by manipulating either the fundamental frequency (F0) contour, the segmental durations, or the intensity contour of an utterance. Of these three prosodic elements, two or more can be exaggerated at the same time. The algorithms of synthesis and evaluation were suggested. Learner utterances exaggerated in each of the three prosodic features were evaluated with respect to their original native versions in terms of the differences in their F0 contours, the segmental durations, and the intensity contours. The measure of differences was the Euclidean distance metric between the matching points in their F0 and intensity contours. The measure was calculated after the exaggerated learner utterances were aligned by the segments and rendered identical to their native version in terms of their segmental durations. For the evaluation of the segmental durations, no prior modifications were made in durations and the same measure was used. The results from the pilot experiment suggest the viability of this measure in the evaluation of learner utterances with atypical prosody with respect to their native versions.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to examine the prosodic pattern of the children with high functioning autism spectrum disorder(HFASD) according to sentence type. The participants were 18 children aged from 7 - 9 years; 9 children with HFASD and 9 typical development children(TD) of the same chronological age with HFASD children. Sentence reading tasks were conducted in this study. Seven interrogative sentences and 7 declarative sentences were presented to the participants and were asked to read the sentences three times. Mean values of F0, F0 range, intensity, speech rate and pitch contour were measured for each sentence. The results showed that for F0 range, significant main effect and interaction effect were observed in the subject group and sentence type. There were significant differences in intensity, mean F0, speech rate, pitch contour across sentence types. The results of this study indicated that HFASD showed no difference in intonation across sentence types. Speakers' intention may have a negative effect on pragmatic aspects. These results suggest that the assessment and intervention of prosody be important for HFASD.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.137-143
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• 2006

The aim of this paper is to investigate the prosodic characteristics of Korean distant speech. Four speakers (2 males and 2 females) produced 36 2-syllable words in both distant-talking and normal environments. totaling 288 spoken 2-syllable words. The results showed that ratios of second syllable to first syllable in vowel duration and vowel energy were significantly larger in the distant-talking environment compared to the normal environment and f0 range also bigger in the distant-talking environment. In addition, 'HL%' contour boundary tone in the second syllable and/or 'L+H' contour tone in the first syllable were used in the distant-talking environment.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.43-47
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• 2003

This paper is phonetic study of $F_{0}$ range and boundary tone in Mandarin Chinese. The production data from 6 Chinese speakers show that there are declination, pitch resetting and tonal variation of boundary tone. In declarative sentence, $F_{0}$ declines gradually over the utterance but mid-sentence boundary prevents $F_{0}$ of following syllable from declining because of pitch resetting. $F_{0}$ range of syllable is expanded before the mid- and final sentence boundaries. In interrogative one, $F_{0}$ ascends gradually over the utterance and mid-sentence boundary makes $F_{0}$ of following syllable rise more. $F_{0}$ range of sentence final syllable is expanded and $F_{0}$ contour shows rising curve.