• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.6 no.12
• /
• pp.186-191
• /
• 2006

The perception of English labial consonants was investigated via experiment where 40 Korean EFL learners identified nonwords with the target 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 overall result showed that the proportion of perception accuracy of the target consonants was rather low, amounting to only 55%. There was also a positional effect since the accuracy rates for perceiving the four target consonants differed by position. Specifically, the average accuracy rate of the target consonant identification was higher in intervocalic position before stress (70%) and initial onset position (67%) than in intervocalic position after stress (45%) and final coda position (36%). Further, the accuracy rate for [f] is was high in all prosodic locations except intervocalic position after stress. The perception patterns were accounted for by the markedness and perceptual factors in conjunction with stress location.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.227-232
• /
• 2014

The aim of this study was to investigate phoneme recognition in postlingually deafened adults with cochlear implantation. 21-cochlear implantee were participated. They was used cochlear implants more than 1 year. In order to measure consonant performance abilities, subjects were asked for 18 items of Korean consonants in a "aCa" condition with audition alone. The scores ranged from 11 to 86 ($60{\pm}17$)%. The consonant performance abilities correlated with implanted hearing threshold level, significantly (p<.046). This results suggest that consonant performance abilities of postlingual deafened adults cochlear implantee be important for implanted hearing. They had higher correct rates for fricatives and affricatives with distinctive frequency bands than for plosives, liquids & nasals with the same or adjacent frequency bands. All subjects had confusion patterns among the consonants of the same manner of articulation. The reason of consonant confusions was caused that they couldn't recognize different intensities and durations of consonants with the same or adjacent frequency bands.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.53-67
• /
• 2005

It is known that Korean stop consonants in syllable-initial position are of three types : lax, aspirated and forced (or unaspirated). In syllable-final position, however, these three different types are merged to a single type with the same place of articulation, although the original three-way distinction is preserved in Korean orthographic (Hangul) system. Thus the syllable-final stops are phonetically realized as voiceless "applosives" which are characterized by the absence of oral release. The aim of the present study is to investigate the laryngeal adjustments for these syllable-final stops in various phonological conditions by using fiberscope, and, is to further investigate electromyographically the laryngeal adjustments for Korean stops both in the syllable-initial and final positions in various phonological conditions. The results can be summarized as follows : 1. In the case of syllable-initial stops, the glottal widths in each three types of the Korean stops during the articulatory closure are clearly different. And the pattern of thyroarytenoid(VOC) activity appeared to characterize the three different types of Korean stops. 2. The basic laryngeal feature of the Korean syllable-final applosives is characterized by a small degree of glottal opening which begins at or slightly after the oral closure. 3. In the case, syllable-final stop followed by the copula "ita", the syllable- final stop is pronounced as the stop consonant at the initial position of the following syllable containing the vowel[i], the underlying features of three-way distinction for the stops in the Korean orthographic(Hangul) system being manifested at the laryngeal adjustment. 4. In the case of the final applosives followed by the initial stops and fricatives, the laryngeal feature of the final applosives appears to be assimilated by that of the following consonant irrespective of the difference in the place of articulation, as far as the glottal abduction/adduction is concerned. It is clearly demonstrated in the case of syllable-initial stop that thyoarytenoid(VOC) activity is suppressed for the production of the stop consonants in question, the degree of which is slightest for the forced type and most marked for the aspirated type, while it is moderate for the lax type.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.133-140
• /
• 2004

Background and Objectives : Vowels and resonant including nasals and liquid are produced with vocal folds vibration have been used for voice therapy of hyperadduction patients. This study was conducted to investigate phonatory characteristics of vowels and resonant consonants through the EGG measures from Lx. Speech studio (Laryngograph Ltd, UK). Materials and Method : 7 male adults produced sustained vowel /a/, /i/, /u/, nasals /m/, /n/, /${\eta}$/and liquid /I/ and read the sentences (1nasals-liquid sentence, 1 non-nasals-liquid sentence) and tongue-tip trill and humming. Fx(Hz), Ox(%) were obtained of vowels, nasals, liquid and each of the posterior vowel /a/ of /ma/, /na/, /la/, /ha/ with same F0(around F#165Hz) and amplitude (75${\pm}$5db). And also DFx(Hz), DQx(%), CFx(%) and CAx(%) were obtained from reading two kinds of sentences. Results : Qx(%) was the highest in /u/ of vowels, and nasal/n/ of the resonant consonants and nasals-liquid sentence was higher Qx than non-nasals-liquid sentence but significant differences were not found. Qx(%) of the posterior vowel /a/ of nasal consonants/n/ was higher than in the isolated vowel/a/ and other posterior vowel of resonant consonants and fricatives /h/. Regularity or periodicity and higher Qx were observed in the nasals-liquid sentence than non-nasals-liquid sentence in graphs of QxFx & CFx produced by Quantiative analysis. In the nasalance score, /u/vowel was significant higher among the vowels and /I/ liquid was significant lower among the resonant consonants and nasals-liquid sentence is higher than non-nasals -liquid sentence. CQ(%) was not significantly correlated with nasalance(%). Conclusion : These findings might signify resonant phonation was not correlated with nasalance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.42-47
• /
• 2010

Backgrounds and Objects: Carcinoma of the tongue is the most common cancer of the oral cavity. A primary treatment strategy includes surgery and/or radiotherapy. Resection of the tongue often results in speech dysfunction, which depends on the site and extent of resection, type of reconstruction, and the mobility of remaining tongue. This study aimed to evaluate the characteristics of articulation errors that were resulted from the partial glossectomy without free flap reconstruction. Materials & Method : Articulation evaluations including speech intelligibility and percent of correct consonants (PCC) were performed for 24 patients who underwent partial glossectomy for their T1 or T2 tongue cancer. Mobility of the tongue, size of the resected tongue, and the history of adjuvant radiotherapy were analyzed for their relationship with the results of articulation evaluation. Results: Speech intelligibility score was $6.4{\pm}0.9$ (on 7-point scale) and overall PCC was 96.9%. There were close relationships between the size of resection and limitations in the tongue mobility, especially in "protrusion and elevation (r=-0.687)" and "retroflexion (r=-0.775)". Errors in "alveolar fricatives" and "palatal affricates" were also closely related with the size of resection (r=-0.537 and -0.538, respectively). PCC for "liquid sound" /r/ was 83.2%, which was closely related with the history of radiation therapy. Conclusion : Overall articulatory function was satisfactory in cases of early tongue cancer after partial glossectomy of a limited volume without flap reconstruction. However, the size of resection and the history of radiation therapy were closely related to the limitations in some types of tongue mobility and the resultant articulation errors.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.7-27
• /
• 2003

Esophageal Speech uses the esophageal air during phonation. Fluent esophageal speakers frequently intake air in oral communication, but unskilled esophageal speakers are difficult with swallowing lots of air. The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference of acoustic characteristics of vowel and consonants production according to the speech proficiency level in esophageal speech. 13 normal male speakers and 13 male esophageal speakers (5 unskilled esophageal speakers, 8 skilled esophageal speakers) with age ranging from 50 to 70 years old. The stimuli were sustained /a/ vowel and 36 meaningless two syllable words. Used vowel is /a/ and consonants were 18 : /k, n, t, m, p, s, c, $C^{h},\;k^{h},\;t^{h},\;p^{h}$, h, I, k', t', p', s', c'/. Fundermental frequency (Fx), Jitter, shimmer, HNR, MPT were measured with by electroglottography using Lx speech studio (Laryngograph Ltd, London, UK). 36 meaningless words produced by esophageal speakers were presented to 3 speech-language pathologists who phonetically transcribed their responses. Fx, Jitter, HNR parameters is significant different between skilled esophageal speakers and unskilled esophageal speakers (P<.05). Considering manner of articulation, ANOVA showed that differences in two esophageal speech groups on speech proficiency were significant; Glide had the highest number of confusion with the other phoneme class, affricates are the most intelligible in the unskilled esophageal speech group, whereas in the skilled esophageal speech group fricatives resulted highest number of confusions, nasals are the most intelligible. In the place of articulation, glottal /h/ is the highest confusion consonant in both groups. Bilabials are the most intelligible in the skilled esophageal speech, velars are the most intelligible in the unskilled esophageal speech. In the structure of syllable, 'CV+V' is more confusion in the skilled esophageal group, unskilled esophageal speech group has similar confusion in both structures. In unskilled esophageal speech, significantly different Fx, Jitter, HNR acoustic parameters of vowel and the highest confusions of Liquid, Nasals consonants could be attributed to unstable, improper contact of neoglottis as vibratory source and insufficiency in the phonatory air supply, and higher motoric demand of remaining articulation due to morphological characteristics of vocal tract after laryngectomy.

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

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.246-246
• /
• 1996

Purpose: Some of the properties of the prosodic phrasing and some acoustic and phonological effects of contrastive focus on the tonal pattern of Seoul Korean is explored based on a brief experiment of analyzing the fundamental frequency(=FO) contour of the speech of the author. Data Base and Analysis Procedures: The examples were chosen to contain mostly nasal and liquid consonants, since it is difficult to track down the formants in stops and fricatives during their corresponding consonantal intervals and stops may yield an effect of unwanted increase in the FO value due to their burst into the following vowel. All examples were recorded three times and the spectrum of the most stable repetition was generated, from which the FO contour of each sentence was obtained, the peaks with a value higher than 250Hz being interpreted as a high tone (=H). The result is then discussed within the prosodic hierarchy framework of Selkirk (1986) and compared with the tonal pattern of the Northern Kyungsang dialect of Korean reported in Kenstowicz & Sohn (1996). Prosodic Phrasing: In N.K. Korean, H never appears both on the object and on the verb in a neutral sentence, which indicates the object and the verb form a single Phonological Phrase ($={\phi}$), given that there is only one pitch peak for each $={\phi}$. However, Seoul Korean shows that both the object and the verb have H of their own, indicating that they are not contained in one $={\phi}$. This violates the Optimality constraint of Wrap-XP (=Enclose a lexical head and its arguments in one $={\phi}$), while N.K. Korean obeys the constraint by grouping a VP in a single $={\phi}$. This asymmetry can be resolved through a constraint that favors the separate grouping of each lexical category and is ranked higher than Wrap-XP in Seoul Korean but vice versa in N.K. Korean; $Align-x^{lex}$ (=Align the left edge of a lexical category with that of a $={\phi}$). (1) nuna-ka manll-ll mEk-nIn-ta ('sister-NOM garlic-ACC eat-PRES-DECL') a. (LLH) (LLH) (HLL) ----Seoul Korean b. (LLH) (LLL LHL) ----N.K. Korean Focus and Phrasing: Two major effects of contrastive focus on phonological phrasing are found in Seoul Korean: (a) the peak of an Intonatioanl Phrase (=IP) falls on the focused element; and (b) focus has the effect of deleting all the following prosodic structures. A focused element always attracts the peak of IP, showing an increase of approximately 30Hz compared with the peak of a non-focused IP. When a subject is focused, no H appears either on the object or on the verb and a focused object is never followed by a verb with H. The post-focus deletion of prosodic boundaries is forced through the interaction of StressFocus (=If F is a focus and DF is its semantic domain, the highest prominence in DF will be within F) and Rightmost-IP (=The peak of an IP projects from the rightmost $={\phi}$). First Stress-F requires the peak of IP to fall on the focused element. Then to avoid violating Rightmost-IP, all the boundaries after the focused element should delete, minimizing the number of $={\phi}$'s intervening from the right edge of IP. (2) (omitted) Conclusion: In general, there seems to be no direct alignment constraints between the syntactically focused element and the edge of $={\phi}$ determined in phonology; all the alignment effects come from a single requirement that the peak of IP projects from the rightmost $={\phi}$ as proposed in Truckenbrodt (1995).