• Title/Summary/Keyword: Phonetics

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Language Specific Variations of Domain-initial Strengthening and its Implications on the Phonology-Phonetics Interface: with Particular Reference to English and Hamkyeong Korean

  • Kim, Sung-A
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.7-21
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    • 2004
  • The present study aims to investigate domain-initial strengthening phenomenon, which refers to strengthening of articulatory gestures at the initial positions of prosodic domains. More specifically, this paper presents the result of an experimental study of initial syllables with onset consonants (initial-syllable vowels henceforth) of various prosodic domains in English and Hamkyeong Korean, a pitch accent dialect spoken in the northern part of North Korea. The durations of initial-syllable vowels are compared to those of second vowels in real-word tokens for both languages, controlling both stress and segmental environment. Hamkyeong Korean, like English, tuned out to strengthen the domain-initial consonants. With regard to vowel durations, no significant prosodic effect was found in English. On the other hand, Hamkyeong Korean showed significant differences between the durations of initial and non-initial vowels in the higher prosodic domains. The theoretical implications of the findings are as follows: The potentially universal phenomenon of initial strengthening is shown to be subject to language specific variations in its implementation. More importantly, the distinct phonetics- phonology model (Pierrehumbert & Beckman, 1998; Keating, 1990; Cohn, 1993) is better equipped to account for the facts in the present study.

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A Study of Korean Phonetic and Phonological Properties for Speech Recognition and Synthesis (음성 인식/합성을 위한 국어의 음성-음운론적 특성 연구)

  • Chung, Kook;Koo, Hee-San;Lee, Chan-Do;Kim, Jong-Mi;Han , Sun-Hee
    • The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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    • v.13 no.6
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    • pp.31-44
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    • 1994
  • The paper introduces several studies of various aspects of Korean phonology and phonetics for speech recognition and synthesis. The phonological and phonetic studies presented in this paper are : i) For a study of segmental phonology, we made an annotated list of Korean allophones and their corresponding alphabetic symbols to type into computers. ii) For a study of segmental phonetics, we present some acoustic regulations in Korean consonants according to their phonological environment within a word. iii) For a study of prosodic phonology, we suggest the phonological functions of prosodic features and their acoustic cues. iv) For a study of prosodic phonetics, we present the characteristic patterns of accent and intonation in Korean. v) Finally, we suggest some ways of using this phonological and phonetic knowledge for possible improvement of speech recognition and synthesis.

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An Acoustic and Aerodynamic Study of Consonants in Cheju

  • Cho, Tae-Hong;Jun, Sun-Ah;Ladefoged, Peter
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.109-141
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    • 2000
  • Acoustic and aerodynamic characteristics of Cheju consonants were examined with the focus on the well-known three-way distinction among stops (i.e., lenis, fortis, aspirated) and the two-way distinction between sand s*. Acoustic parameters examined for the stops included VOT, relative stop burst energy, Fo at the vowel onset, H1-H2, and H1-F2 at the vowel onset. For the fricatives s and s*, acoustic parameters were fricative duration, Fo, centroid of the fricative noise, RMS energy of the frication, H1-H2 and Hl-F2 at the onset of the following vowel. In investigating aerodynamics, intraoral pressure and oral flow were included for the bilabial stops. Results indicate that, although Cheju and Korean are not mutually intelligible, acoustic and aerodynamic properties of Cheju consonants are very similar in every respect to those of the standard Korean. Among other findings there are three crucial points worth recapitulating. First, stops are systematically differentiated by the voice quality of the following vowel. Second, stops are also differentiated by aerodynamic mechanisms. The aspirated and fortis stops are similar in supralaryngeal articulation, but employ a different relation between intraoral pressure and flow. Finally, our study suggests that the fricative s is better categorized as 'lenis' than as 'aspirated' in terms of its phonetic realization.

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On the primacy of auditory phonetics In tonological analysis and pitch description;In connection with the development of a new pitch scale (성조 분석과 음조 기술에서 청각음성학의 일차성;반자동 음조 청취 등급 분석기 개발과 관련하여)

  • Gim, Cha-Gyun
    • Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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    • 2007.05a
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    • pp.3-23
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    • 2007
  • King Sejong the Great, his students in Jip-hyeun-jeon school and Choe Sejin, their successor of the sixteenth century, indicated Middle Korean had three distinctive pitches, low, high, and rising (phyeong-, geo-, sang-sheong). Thanks to $Hun-min-jeng-{\emptyset}eum$ as well as its Annotation and side-dots literatures in fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we can compare Middle Korean with Hamgyeong dialect, Gyeongsang dialect, and extant tone dialects with joint preservers of what was probably the tonal system of unitary mother Korean language. What is most remarkable about middle Korean phonetic work is its manifest superiority in conception and execution as anything produced in the present day linguistic scholarship. But at this stage in linguistics, prior to the technology and equipment needed for the scientific analysis of sound waves, auditory description was the only possible frame for an accurate and systematic classification. And auditory phonetics still remains fundamental in pitch description, even though modern acoustic categories may supplement and supersede auditory ones in tonological analysis. Auditory phonetics, however, has serious shortcoming that its theory and practice are too subject to be developed into the present century science. With joint researchers, I am developping a new pitch scale. It is a semiautomatic auditory grade pitch analysis program. The result of our labor will give a significant breakthrough to upgrade our component in linguistics.

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Voice quality distinctions of the three-way stop contrast under prosodic strengthening in Korean

  • Jiyoung Jang;Sahyang Kim;Taehong Cho
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.17-24
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    • 2024
  • The Korean three-way stop contrast (lenis, aspirated, fortis) is currently undergoing a sound change, such that the primary cue distinguishing lenis and aspirated stops is shifting from voice onset time (VOT) to F0. Despite recent discussions of this shift, research on voice quality, traditionally considered an additional cue signaling the contrast, remains sparse. This study investigated the extent to which the associated voice quality [as reflected in the acoustic measurements of H1*-H2*, H1*- A1*, and cepstral peak prominence (CPP)] contributes to the three-way stop contrast, and how the realization is conditioned by prominence- vs. boundary-induced prosodic strengthening amid the ongoing sound change. Results for 12 native Korean speakers indicate that there was a substantial distinction in voice quality among the three stop categories with the breathiness of the vowel being the greatest after the lenis, intermediate after the aspirated, and least after the fortis stops, indicating the role of voice quality in the maintenance of the three-way stop contrast. Furthermore, prosodic strengthening has different effects on the contrast and contributes to the enhancement of the phonological contrast contingent on whether it is induced by prominence or boundary.

A Study on The Effects of The phonetics-Centered Chinese character Lecture on Quantitative EEG (성부 중심 한자강의가 정량화 뇌파에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Byeong-Chan;Weon, Hee-Wook
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.20 no.12
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    • pp.482-492
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    • 2019
  • This study began with the assumption that the phonetics-centered interpretation of 100 Chinese characters would enhance thinking ability and comprehension. For this purpose, two experimental groups and a comparative group were recruited from the graduate students from June 3, 2017 to February 22, 2018. The experimental group participated in the phonetics-centered Chinese character lecture for 4 hours per week for 6 weeks for a total of 24 hours. QEEG were measured before and after the phonetics-centered Chinese character lecture. A total of 18 subjects ( nine subjects in the experimental group and nine comparative subjects) were included in the study, and the difference between before and after the QEEG of the experimental and comparative groups was analyzed, respectively. The conclusions drawn from this study are as follows. First, the Chinese character lecture changed brain waves. Second, the LORETA analysis before and after the lecture in the experimental group significantly decreased the delta wave in the brain region (Broadmann 40) associated with the meaning of language and phonology. This study result is meaningful because it shows the significant changes of EEG via the lecture.