• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 2006년도 춘계 학술대회 발표논문집
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• pp.67-70
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• 2006

Prosody can be used to resolve syntactic ambiguity of a sentence. English relative clause construction with complex NP(the N1, N2, and RC sequence) has syntactic ambiguity and the clause can be interpreted as modyfying N1(high attachment) or N2(low attachment), Speakers and listeners can disambiguate those sentences based on the prosody. In this paper, we investigate the Korean English learners production on the prosodic structure of English relative clause construction. The production experiment shows that the beginner learners use the phrasing frequently and the advanced learners depend on both the phrasing and the accent. One of the characteristic of the Korean English learners' intonation is that the Korean accentual phrase tone pattern LHa is transferred to their production.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.33-39
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• 2010

This study investigates the effect of pitch range reset in Korean listeners' processing of syntactically ambiguous participle structures. Unlike Japanese and English,in Korean, the downtrend or the reset of pitch range does not consistently differentiate Accentual Phrases (AP), a lower level of phrasing, from Intonational Phrases (IP), a higher level of phrasing. Therefore, we explore Korean listeners' comprehension patterns for syntactically ambiguous speech strings varying in 1) the relative height of F0 peaks across prosodic units, and 2) the types of prosodic phrasing, to see whether pitch range reset informs the recovery of syntactic structure even though it is not reflected in the intonational hierarchy in Korean. The results show that the hierarchical level of prosodic phrasing affects the parsing pattern of syntactic ambiguity. The pitch range reset also cued the location of syntactic boundaries, but this effect was confined to phrases across AP.

• 음성과학
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.89-104
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• 2004

This paper investigates previous theories on English focus realization and attempts to find out the overall acoustic characteristics of English focus. It has been argued in previous studies that English focus can be defined as a new information that is not recoverable from the context (Halliday 1967), a complementary element of presupposition (Jackendoff 1972), and what is predicated about the topic in a sentence (Sgall 1973, Gundel 1974). The phonetic realization of English focus in an utterance has been said to be either L+H*/H*, or falling accent. Yet it is a more or less simplified pattern not based on real data obtained from native speakers of English, and it does not consider the various pragmatic and contextual situations. In our experiments we found that native speakers uttered English focus sentences in different ways according to the different focus structure. Another notable result is that Korean speakers, when provided with the same experimental material, are neither able to distinguish different focus types nor deaccent the elements that are not focused in an utterance.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.9-14
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• 2018

This study compared the relative contributions of intensity, F0, duration and vowel spectra of L2 English lexical stress by Japanese and Korean learners of English. Recordings of Japanese, Korean and native English speakers reading eighteen 2 to 4 syllable words in a carrier sentence were analyzed using multiple regression to investigate the influence of each acoustic correlate in determining whether a vowel was stressed. The relative contribution of each correlate was calculated by converting the coefficients to percentages. The Japanese learner group showed phonological transfer of L1 phonology to L2 lexical prosody and relied mostly on F0 and duration in manifesting L2 English stress. This is consistent with the results of the previous studies. However, advanced Japanese speakers in the group showed less reliance on F0, and more use of intensity, which is another parameter used in native English stress accents. On the other hand, there was little influence of F0 on L2 English stress by the Korean learners, probably due to the transfer of the Korean intonation pattern to L2 English prosody. Hence, this study shows that L1 transfer happens at the prosodic level for Japanese learners of English and at the intonational level for Korean learners.

• 한국언어정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국언어정보학회 2007년도 정기학술대회
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• pp.405-414
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• 2007

This paper describes a preliminary work on prosody modeling aspect of a text-to-speech system for Thai. Specifically, the model is designed to predict symbolic markers from text (i.e., prosodic phrase boundaries, accent, and intonation boundaries), and then using these markers to generate pitch, intensity, and durational patterns for the synthesis module of the system. In this paper, a novel method for annotating the prosodic structure of Thai sentences based on dependency representation of syntax is presented. The goal of the annotation process is to predict from text the rhythm of the input sentence when spoken according to its intended meaning. The encoding of the prosodic structure is established by minimizing speech disrhythmy while maintaining the congruency with syntax. That is, each word in the sentence is assigned a prosodic feature called strength dynamic which is based on the dependency representation of syntax. The strength dynamics assigned are then used to obtain rhythmic groupings in terms of a phonological unit called foot. Finally, the foot structure is used to predict the durational pattern of the input sentence. The aforementioned process has been tested on a set of ambiguous sentences, which represents various structural ambiguities involving five types of compounds in Thai.

• 한국음향학회지
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.137-143
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• 2006

본 논문의 목적은 한국어 원거리 음성의 운율적 특성을 규명하는 것으로, 36개의 2음절어를 4명의 화자 (여성 화자 2명, 남성 화자 2명)가 원거리 환경과 일반환경에서 발화한 총 288개의 2음절어를 분석대상으로 하였다. 실험 결과 지속시간과 에너지의 경우는 일반 음성에 비하여 원거리 음성의 첫음절에 대한 둘째음절의 비율이 유의미하게 큰 것으로 나타났다. F0 대역폭의 경우에도 원거리 음성에서의 대역폭이 평이 음성에 비해 큰 값을 보였다. 억양 패턴에 있어서는 원거리 음성의 경우에 둘째음절에 'HL%'의 복합 경계성조가 실현되거나 첫음절에 'L+H' 성조가 실현되기도 하였으며 이 두 가지가 한 단어에 모두 실현되는 경우도 있었다.

• 음성과학
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• 제7권4호
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• pp.203-217
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• 2000

In spoken language, the characteristics of prosodic realization are related to the meaning of utterance. The pitch pattern of an interrogative sentence which differs from that of declarative sentences can be considered in this respect.. If we consider the question-answer pair, we can find that the most important variation comes from the intended meaning of asking. In this paper, we experiment with four kinds of interrogative sentences and show that the difference in pitch patterns of interrogative sentences can be explained in relation to the focus phenomena that is, the differences of the boundary tones in interrogative sentences are due to the differences in the prosodic domain of focus. For a relevant explanation with the focus phenomena, we divided focus into the categories: emphatic focus, which plays a role in delivering the speaker's intended meaning for the sentence interpretation, and informational focus, delivers the central intended meaning of the utterance. The results can be summarized in three points. First, High boundary tone delivers the meaning of asking. Second, the realization of different boundary tones that are found in wh-question and alternative question are just phonetic variations caused by focusing. Third, the high rise boundary tone in echo questions is related to the meaning of surprise or incredulity, and this relation is a consensus of existing opinion, that is, the speaker's attitude of surprise can raise the pitch range. From these results we can distinguish between boundary type and phonetic variation, and we can also give appropriate meaning to the different boundary tones in interrogative sentences that have been regarded as merely a part of sentence type.

• 음성과학
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.17-28
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• 2005

This paper argues that news speech entails a distinct intonational pattern from natural speech, effectively reflecting that it primarily focuses on providing new information. We conducted a phonetic experiment to compare the tonal contours between news speech and natural speech, examining the distributions of pitch accents and the overall pitch ranges. We utilized 70 American Press (AP) radio news utterances and 70 natural utterances extracted from TV dramas. Results show that news speech involves 3.38 H*'s (including L+H* and !H*) within an intonational phrase (IP) or intermediate phrase (ip) whereas natural speech, 1.8 in average. The number of IP/ip's per sentence is 3 in news speech, which is shown in the highest rate of 32.07% of the news speech, but it is merely 1, taking up the highest 41.42% in natural speech. Next, declination tends to be prevented in news speech, and the pitch range is much greater in news speech than in natural speech. Finally, a secondary stress syllable is comparatively frequently given a pitch accent in news speech, explicitly distinct from natural speech. These results can be interpreted as stating that news has the particular purpose of providing new information; every content word tends to be given a H* or its related pitch accent like L+H* or !H* because news speech assumes that every word conveys new information. This definitely brings about more IP/ip's per sentence due to a human physiological constraint; that is, more H*'s will cause more respiratory breaks. Also, greater pitch ranges and pitch accents imposed on secondary stress may be attributed to exaggerating new information.

• 한국음향학회지
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.117-126
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• 2005

본 연구는 대용량 데이터베이스 분석을 통한 한국어의 운을 특성 규명을 시도하였다. 남녀 화자 1명씩 각각 낭독한 650개의 뉴스기사 문장 (총 1,300 개)은 분절음 레이블링과 운율 레이블링을 한 후, 각 운율단위의 성조유형과 크기, 상위운율단위의 크기와 하위 운율단위 수간의 상관관계, 그리고 강세구의 하강곡선과 상승곡선의 기울기와 F0 값에 대한 비교분석을 수행하였다. 운율단위의 지속시간, 어절수, 음절수와 하위 운율단위의 수는 화자뿐만 아니라 운율단위 위치에 따라서 차이를 보였으며 하위 운율단위의 수는 상위 운율단위의 음절수와 지속시간과 높은 상관관계를 보였다. 강세구 내의 하강곡선의 기울기는 강세구 음절수와 반비례 관계를 보였으며 강세구 첫 성조의 유형에 따라 기울기 값에 차이가 있었다. 이 차이는 고성조로 시작한 강세구 성조의 F0 상승과 성조 간 상승 폭의 차이로 설명할 수 있었다. 강세구 경계의 하강곡선은 일정하면서 강세구 내의 하강곡선에 비해 다소 급격한 기울기를 보였다. 강세구 내의 두 상승곡선은 유사한 기지값을 보였으나 강세구 시작 상승곡선의 F0 변화량이 끝 상승곡선의 F0 변화량보다 크게 나타났다. 그리고 하나의 상승곡선이 강세구를 이루는 L Ha의 경우에는 강세구의 음절수에 반비례 관계를 보였다.

• 한국컴퓨터정보학회논문지
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• 제17권9호
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• pp.75-84
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• 2012

HMM 기반 음성합성시스템은 성능향상을 위해 일반적으로 대용량 음성 DB로부터 생성된 문맥의존 tri-phone을 이용한다. 그리고 대용량 DB의 경량화를 위해서 문맥의존정보를 이용하여 결정트리 방식으로 발화특성이 유사한 문맥의존음소들을 군집화한다. 군집화에 사용하는 문맥의존정보는 음소열 뿐만 아니라 운율정보도 포함하는데 이는 합성음의 자연성이 끊어 읽기, 억양패턴, 음의 장단과 같은 운율에 의해 크게 좌우되기 때문이다. 그러나 복잡한 운율정보를 사용할 경우 훈련과정에 포함되지 않은 문맥의존음소는 하나의 대표값으로 평활화되며 이로 인해 합성음의 자연성이 크게 저하된다. 본 논문에서는 합성음의 자연성을 향상시키기 위해 복잡한 운율정보 대신 억양 변화를 상승, 평탄, 하강으로 구분함으로써 운율정보표현을 간소화시킨 운율경계정보를 포함하는 문맥의존정보에 대한 문맥질의, 그리고 해당 질의의 패턴을 정의하는 방법을 제안하였다. 본 논문에서 제안하는 세 가지 운율경계정보를 포함한 문맥의존정보를 이용하여 합성음을 생성하고 MOS평가를 수행한 결과 운율경계정보를 이용한 HMM기반 한국어 TTS 합성음의 자연성이 향상됨을 확인하였다.