• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.1E
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• pp.10-15
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• 2004

In performing speech conversion from a source speaker to a target speaker, it is important that the pitch contour of the source speakers utterance be converted into that of the target speaker, because pitch contour of a speech utterance plays an important role in expressing speaker's individuality and meaning of the utterance. This paper describes statistical algorithms of pitch contour conversion for Korean language. Pitch contour conversions are investigated at two 1 evels of prosodic phrases: intonational phrase and accentual phrase. The basic algorithm is a Gaussian normalization [7] in intonational phrase. The first presented algorithm is combined with a declination-line of pitch contour in an intonational phrase. The second one is Gaussian normalization within accentual phrases to compensate for local pitch variations. Experimental results show that the algorithm of Gaussian normalization within accentual phrases is significantly more accurate than the other two algorithms in intonational phrase.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.31-42
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• 2004

This paper presents methods using Gaussian normalization for converting pitch contours based on prosodic phrases along with experimental tests on the Korean database of 16 declarative sentences and the first sentences of the story of 'The Three Little Pigs'. We propose a new conversion method using Gaussian normalization to the pitch deviation of pitch contour subtracted by partial declination lines: by using partial declination lines for each accentual phrase of pitch contour, we avoid the problem that a Gaussian normalization using average values and standard deviations of intonational phrase tends to lose individual local variability and thus cannot modify individual characteristics of pitch contour from a source speaker to a target speaker. From the results of the experiments, we show that this slanted Gaussian normalization using these declination lines subtracted from pitch contour of accentual phrases can modify pitch contour more accurately than other methods using Gaussian normalization.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.49-62
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• 1999

This study is concerned with the educational program Visual Analysis Tool (VAT) for sound development for foreign intonation using personal computer. The VAT can run on IBM-PC 386 compatible or higher. It shows the spectrogram, waveform, intensity and the pitch contour. The system can work freely on either waveform zoom in-out or the documentation of measured value. In this paper, intensity and pitch contour information were used. Twelve French sentences were recorded from a French conversational tape. And three Korean participated in this study. They spoke out twelve sentences repeatly and trid to make the same pitch contour - by visually matching their pitcgh contour to the native speaker's. A sentences were recorded again when the participants themselves became familiar with intonation, intensity and pauses. The difference of pitch contour(rising or falling), pitch value, energy, total duration of sentences and the boundary of rhythmic group between native speaker's and theirs before and after training were compared. The results were as following: 1) In a declarative sentence: a native speaker's general pitch contour falls at the end of sentences. But the participant's pitch contours were flat before training. 2) In an interrogative: the native speaker made his pitch contours it rise at the end of sentences with the exception of wh-questions (qu'est-ce que) and a pitch value varied a greath. In the interrogative 'S + V' form sentences, we found the pitch contour rose higher in comparison to other sentences and it varied a great deal. 3) In an exclamatory sentence: the pitch contour looked like a shape of a mountain. But the participants could not make it fall before or after training.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.59-69
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to examine the variation of pitch contour observed in the reading of Korean sentences produced by Chinese Korean-learners. In the reading context, Korean sentence intonation can be described by considering accentual phrases' pitch pattern and intonational phrases' boundary tone. But when APs and IPs connect to each other to form sentences, another aspect of speech production must be considered, that is declination of pitch contour. So, in order to examine how Chinese speakers produce Korean sentence intonation, we have analysed the sentences' pitch contours produced by fourteen Chinese speakers differing in proficiency, and compared them to pitch contours produced by six Korean native speakers. The results show that Chinese speakers tend to decline the pitch contour in shorter sentences, but for longer sentences, the declination was not observed. Moreover, even though Chinese speakers produced sentences with declination, internal tonal modulation differs from native speakers.

• 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.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2005

This study was an attempt to determine acoustic characteristics in myna bird's notes. Two myna birds' sounds imitating a normal male voice in his late 20's were sampled and analyzed. The analyses included the mean values of F1, F2, F3 and pitch contours. The results were as follows; First, there was a significan difference in the mean values of F1, F2, and F3 in isolatd vowel /a/ and /i/ between the myna birds' sounds and the human voice. However, there was no apparent difference in pitch contour of their formants. Second, there was a difference in pitch contour of their formants in their sentence ('hn-nyung-ha-se-yo?' meaning 'How are you?') production. Namely, the myna birds' pitch contour was located higher than that of the human's.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.25-51
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• 2017

This study aimed to identify the differences in pitch perception between tonal and non-tonal language listeners. A total of 60 Korean and Chinese listeners participated in the perception test. A two-syllable nonsense word /paba/ was manipulated in five steps. The pitch height or contour on the second syllable was raised or lowered. Both groups were asked to select which of the two syllables had the higher pitch. The findings showed that the majority of Korean listeners (GK) perceived decreased pitch as each peak of the syllable was lowered and perceived increased pitch as it was raised, which means the pitch height is a primary perceptual cue for GK. However, Chinese listeners (GC) perceived sensitive pitch movements as the pitch contour changed. GC's perception may presumably be affected by the L1's tone sandhi. We found it reasonable to assume that language experience has a significant effect on the cross-linguistic perceptual differences between tone and non-tonal language listeners.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.02a
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• pp.137-155
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• 1996

The purpose of this paper is to generate a pitch contour which is affected by tile phonetic environment and the number of syllables in each Korean isolated word using a neural network. To do this, we analyzed a set of 513 Korean isolated words, consisting of 1-4 syllables and extracted the pitch contour and the duration of each phoneme in all the words. The total number of phonemes we analyzed is about 3800. After that we approximated the pitch contour with a 1st order polynominal by a regression analysis. We could get the slope, the initial pitch and the duration of each phoneme. We used these 3 parameters as the target pattern of the neural network and let the neural network learn the rule of the variation of the pitch and duration, which was affected by the phonetic environment of each phoneme. We used 7 consecutive phoneme strings as an input pattern for a neural network to make the network learn the effect of phonetic environment around the center phoneme. In the learning phase, we used 3545 items(463 words) as target patterns which contained the phonetic environment of front and rear 3 phonemes and the neural network showed the correctness rate of 98.43%, 98.59%, 97.7% in the estimation of the duration, the slope, the initial pitch. In the recall phase, we tested the performance of tile neural network with 251 items(50 words) which weren't need as learning data and we could get the good correctness rate of 97.34%, 95.45%, 96.3% in the generation of the duration, the slope, and the initial pitch of each phoneme.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.139-155
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• 2007

Old Korean regulated poems have a typical prosodic structure characterized by a pitch contour. This work applies Jun's finding in Seoul Korean(Jun 1993, 2000, 2005) to old Korean regulated poems, and reports some other significant phonetic characteristics, arguing that old Korean regulated poems have a regular rhythm based on the pitch contour implementing the typically hierarchical prosodic structure. The major prosodic units defined are a foot, a phrase, and a line. Next, this work proposes pitch contour characterizing prominence in a unit, boundary tones, and pauses at the boundary position, as the basic and significant cues of rhythm of a Korean poem. Specifically, some significant characteristics are discussed as follows: first, the tonal pattern of a foot is HL, starting high and ending low; second, the lowering boundary tones of HL% and L% are perceived at the end of a phrase and a line; and finally, a gradient degree of pause is observed at each unit-final position.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.97-105
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• 2015

This research mainly focuses on intonational characteristics of synchronous English speech. Intonation contours were extracted from 1,848 utterances produced in two different speaking modes (solo vs. synchronous) by 28 (12 women and 16 men) native speakers of English. Synchronous speech is found to be slower than solo speech. Women are found to speak slower than men. The effect size of speech rate caused by different speaking modes is greater than gender differences. However, there is no interaction between the two factors (speaking modes vs. gender differences) in terms of speech rate. Analysis of pitch point features has it that synchronous speech has smaller Pt (pitch point movement time), Pr (pitch point pitch range), Ps (pitch point slope) and Pd (pitch point distance) than solo speech. There is no interaction between the two factors (speaking modes vs. gender differences) in terms of pitch point features. Analysis of sentence level features reveals that synchronous speech has smaller Sr (sentence level pitch range), Ss (sentence slope), MaxNr (normalized maximum pitch) and MinNr (normalized minimum pitch) but greater Min (minimum pitch) and Sd (sentence duration) than solo speech. It is also shown that the higher the Mid (median pitch), the MaxNr and the MinNr in solo speaking mode, the more they are reduced in synchronous speaking mode. Max, Min and Mid show greater speaker discriminability than other features.