• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.187-200
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• 2002

The purpose of the present study is to see in terms of $F_{0}$ variation in Japanese how discourse focus and the lexical word accent interact with each other in realizing overall intonation patterns. Discourse focus causes prosodic restructuring of phrase structures and, as a result, largely affects pitch contours, whereas the lexical word accent is said to delimit the $F_{0}$ into a certain range. Measurement of $F_{0}$ was made of utterances of Japanese sentences to observe behavior of pitch contours with varied focus assignment and lexical accent specifications. The utterances were obtained in question-answer discourse contexts so that in a sentence, either one NP was always focused or no focus was assigned. I set four points for $F_{0}$ measurement; $F_{1s},F_{1m}, F_{2s}$, and $F_{2m}$, two for each noun phrase corresponding to $F_{0}$ at the beginning of the first syllable and that of the vocalic portion of the second syllable in the two NP's. The results of present study were as follows: (1) for all combination of lexical accent types, the $F_{0}$ rise both in NP1 and NP2 are higher when focused than when not focused. (2) NP2 starts a new accentual phrase when focused, showing even higher $F_{0}$ than NP1, the latter of which implies that in forming a new accentual phrase by focusing, catathesis does not seem to take effect on NP2 preceded by accented NP1. (3) unfocused NP2 preceded by unaccented NP1 has higher $F_{0}$ than those preceded by accented NP1.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.11-22
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• 2010

The present study attempts to investigate declination in Korean and its relevant aspects to the length of utterance, the clause boundary, and focus. More specifically, I examine the relation of declination with the length of utterance, the declination reset at the clause boundary, and the effect of focus on declination. Results showed that the length of utterance had no relation with the first and last pitch values of the utterance but that they were consistent regardless of the length of utterance. However, the declination slope changed to be relatively gentle from the fourth accentual phrase to the end of the whole intonational phrase. There was a reset of declination in such a way that the first pitch in the second phrase was always lower than that of the first phrase, but the first pitch in the third phrase was not always lower than that of the second phrase when the whole utterance was composed of three phrases. Finally, the pitch values of the focusing words decreased as their position went back in a sentence. One declination line was formed in the case of focused utterance, but in the case of an utterance that contained a clause boundary, a new declination line was formed at the start of each new clause. These findings can be applied to developing a Korean speech synthesizer that contains natural prosody; they can be also utilized for teaching Korean prosody.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.75-84
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• 2009

The aim of this paper is to find an adequate method to study declination in Korean. In previous studies of declination in Korean, maximum and minimum pitch values in an accentual phrase were measured. But this method is inadequate when an accentual phrase is located at the intonational phrase. So in order to exclude the final tone of an intonational phrase, we propose to measure pitch values of the first and second tone in an accentual phrase when the tonal pattern of the accentual phrase is 'LHLH'. In this case, the line that connects every first tone of an accentual phrase is the baseline, and the line that connects every second tone of an accentual phrase is the topline. By a comparison of declination between focused and neutral utterances, we will show that the topline of declination is more direct to the speaker's plan than the baseline.

• Language and Information
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.57-74
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• 2001

In this paper, I propose syntactic, semantic and pragmatic restrictions on the distribution of the contrastive topic marker‘-(n)un’in Korean. A contrastive topic is associated with another focus. The association with focus is subject to syntactic islands. On the other hand, there is no syntactic restriction between a phrase attached with‘-(n)un’and a focused expression within the ‘-(n)un’phrase itself. In this area there is a semantic requirement that the alternatives generated by a focused expression be maintained up to the phrase attached with‘-(n)un’. Finally, when‘-(n)un’is used in an embedded clause, the whole sentence becomes natural when the contrastive topic introduced by‘-(n)un’and its alternative contrastive topic, which is presupposed by the contrastive topic marker, jointly constitute a more complex topic which is related to the whole context. And exclusiveness facilitates the formation of the whole complex context.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.187-209
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• 2003

In this paper, we examine if the lexical information of the verb and its noun object affects the pitch accent patterns of the verb phrase focus. Three types of verb-object combinations with different semantic weights are discussed: when the verbs have optional direct objects, when the objects have the greater semantic weight relative to verbs, and when the verbs and the objects have equal semantic weight. Argument-structure-based works note that the pitch accent location in a focused phrase is closely related to the argument structure and contextual information. For example, it has been argued that contextually new noun objects receive accent while given noun objects don't. Contrary to nouns, verbs can be accented or not in verb phrase focus regardless of whether they are given information or new information (Selkirk 1984, 1992). However, the production experiment in this paper shows that the accenting of verbs is not fully optional, but influenced by the lexical semantic information of the verbs. The accenting of noun objects with given information is possible and the deaccenting of new noun objects also occurs depending on the lexical information of the noun objects. The results demonstrate that in addition to argument structure and information by means of context sentences, the lexical semantic information of words influences the pitch accent location in focused phrase.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.7-19
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• 2008

Information structure can be conveyed by prosodic structure (Poser 1984 for Japanese; Inkelas and Leben 1990 for Hausa; Cho 1990 for Korean; Hayes and Lahiri 1991 for Bengali; Selkirk and Shen 1990 for Shanghai Chinese). Different subfields of linguistics and different theoretical perspectives suggest many distinct types of information structure: topic vs. comment, focus vs. background. old vs. new information, etc. The purpose of this paper is to investigate phonetic realizations of focus and topic among these information structures in Korean. For this purpose, we conduct a phonetic experiment where we examine duration, pitch and dephrasing in focus and topic structures. We make four findings through this study. First, duration of 'nun' varies depending on the information structure of the following constituent. Second, the degree of accentual phrase-initial rising is larger in contrastive topic and focused phrases than in neutral phrases. Third, a contrastive topic phrase always constitutes an Intonation Phrase on its own. Fourth, dephrasing occurs variously depending on gender and the number of the syllables within a phrase.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.77-91
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• 1999

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the phonetic characteristics of the 'focus' phrases associated with the particle '-man' in Korean. The particle '-man' is a bound morpheme which, like other postpositions such as the subject marker '-ka' and the object marker '-lil', the so-called 'case markers' in Korean, typically attaches to a noun (phrase). The semantics of '-man' roughly corresponds to that of only, its counterpart in English, and is thus classified as a 'delimiter' (Yang 1973). It is assumed in this paper that '-man', like only in English, should have a 'focus' associated with it (von Stechow 1991, Rooth 1992). In general, '-man' attached phrases get the focus, but sometimes the association is not clear-cut, especially in the cases of emphatic use of '-man' or when the context strongly favors other phrase as the focus (Choe 1996). In this paper, we compare the phonetic characteristics of the '-man' marked phrases with those to which '-ka'/'-lil' is attached, and conclude that the focused '-man' phrases show higher fundamental frequencies than their equally focused 'case' -marked counterparts. However, when the context clearly forces the focus to fall on phrases other than the '-man' or '-ka'/'-lil' attached ones, there is no meaningful difference in fundamental frequency between the '-man' and '-ka'/'-lil' attached phrases. We also compare the phonetic characteristics of the regular use of '-man' with those of the emphatic '-man'. According to our experiments, the emphatic '-man' does not bring forth its phonetic effects, namely, higher fundamental frequencies, on the' -man' attached words or phrases but rather in various other ways such as higher fundamental frequencies in '-man', lengthening of the following word-initial syllable, or the inclusion of the following word in the same accentual phrase. Finally, it is claimed that '-man' associated focus phenomena, especially the emphatic use of '-man', show some typical acoustic characteristics of the other well-known focus phenomena, namely, wh-interrogatives.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.3-15
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• 2014

An articulatory study (using an Electromagnetic Articulography, EMA) was conducted to explore effects of prosodic boundary strength (Intonational Phrase/IP versus Word/Wd), and focus (Focused/accented, Neutral, Unfocused/unaccented) on the kinematic realization of /m/ in the coda (${\ldots}$am#i${\ldots}$) and the onset (${\ldots}$a#mi${\ldots}$) conditions in Korean. (Here # refers to a prosodic boundary such as an IP or a Wd boundary). Several important points have emerged. First, the boundary effect on /m/s was most robustly observed in the temporal dimension in both the coda (IP-final) and the onset (IP-initial) conditions, generally in line with cross-linguistically observable boundary-related lengthening patterns. Crucially, however, in contrast with boundary-related slowing-down effects that have been observed in English, both the IP-final and IP-initial temporal expansions of Korean /m/s were not accompanied by an articulatory slowing down. They were, if anything, associated with a faster movement in the lip opening (release) phase (into the vowel). This suggests that the mechanisms underlying boundary-related temporal expansions may differ between languages. Second, observed boundary-induced strengthening effects (both spatial and temporal expansions, especially on the IP-initial /m/s) were remarkably similar to prominence (focus)-induced strengthening effects, which is again counter to phrase-initial strengthening patterns observed in English in which boundary effects are dissociated from prominent effects. This suggests that initial syllables in Korean may be a common focus for both boundary and prominence marking. These results, taken together, imply that the boundary-induced strengthening in Korean is different in nature from that in English, each being modulated by the individual language's prosodic system. Third, the coda and the onset /m/s were found to be produced in a subtly but significantly different way even in a Wd boundary condition, a potentially neutralizing (resyllabification) context. This suggests that although the coda may be phonologically 'resyllabified' into the following syllable in a phrase-medial position, its underlying syllable affiliation is kinematically distinguished from the onset.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2001

The effects of focus on prosodic phrasing, F0, and duration are investigated paying attention not only to the target of focus but also to the constituents that are outside the domain of focus in Korean. We find that the constituents preceding and following the focused word tend to be dephrased. Dephrasing does not always cover up to the Intonation Phrase boundary contrary to Jun's (1993) claim. Dephrasing caused by focus determines F0 and durational difference between focused and neutral sentences. Syntactic constituency is also shown to playa role in prosodic phrasing.

• Journal of the Korean Graphic Arts Communication Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.73-87
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to provide a executive guideline of humor in Print advertising by analyzing the copy style. For this aim, in-depth analysis about the copy style of humor in Print advertising collected by the web-site of TV cf from 2005 to 2008 was performed. In conclusion, findings showed that the copy style in the pattern of expression was focused on the psychological arousal and incongruity and the pattern of damaging and attacking someone's prestige was considered to be significant in some degree. It was also found that the copy style of humor in Print advertising in the method of expression was focused on the factor of pun, jokes, double-meaning but the factor of satire, irony and turns of phrase was a minority.