• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.69-87
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• 2002

This paper investigates how focus contributes to the phonological and phonetic realization of Japanese intonation. Pierrehumbert & Beckman (1988) pointed out that textual prominence results in the H-tone peak raising on the focused item and IP (Intonational Phrase) initiation before the focused item. Similarly Kori (1989) suggested that the F0 peaks on the words after the focused item tend to be suppressed. Although they give a general description of the characteristics of focus phenomena in Japanese intonation, they fail to explain the F0 peak interaction between H phrasal tone and lexically specified pitch accent in more-than-3-mora words whose accent locations varies from early to late. In this paper, we perform the experiment to investigate the following three points. First, we would like to look at the systematic intonational differences between focused and neutral APs; specifically, focused APs, either accented or unaccented, are compared with the neutral counterparts in terms of F0 pattern. Second, we investigate F0 patterns of a focused AP with more than 3 morae, as the accent of the word varies from early to late. Since an AP with a late accent has a H- on the second mora as well as H*+L on its accent mora, it is expected that these peaks will show systematic F0 pattern when it is focused. Our third concern is F0 patterns of a post focus AP with more than 3 morae, that is, whether a post-focus word is dephrased or just downstepped as the word accent location varies from early to late. This paper is significant in that it tries to clarify the F0 peak interaction between H-and lexical pitch accent H*+L in a variety of focus contexts in Japanese intonation.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.277-281
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• 2006

This paper presents a method for the automatic recognition of pitch accents over syllables. The method that we propose is based on the time-delay recursive neural network (TDRNN). which is a neural network classifier with two different representation of dynamic context: the delayed input nodes allow the representation of an explicit trajectory F0(t) along time. while the recursive nodes provide long-term context information that reflects the characteristics of pitch accentuation in spoken English. We apply the TDRNN to pitch accent recognition in two forms: in the normal TDRNN. all of the prosodic features (pitch. energy, duration) are used as an entire set in a single TDRNN. while in the distributed TDRNN. the network consists of several TDRNNs each taking a single prosodic feature as the input. The final output of the distributed TDRNN is weighted sum of the output of individual TDRNN. We used the Boston Radio News Corpus (BRNC) for the experiments on the speaker-independent pitch accent recognition. π 1e experimental results show that the distributed TDRNN exhibits an average recognition accuracy of 83.64% over both pitch events and non-events.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.281-284
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• 2007

This experimental study aims to find out the correlation between semantic predictability and pitch-accent realization. For the experiment, we classified the predictability into three degrees: unpredictable, implicitly predictable, and explicitly predictable. And then each degree divided into to two subcatergories: one is adverbs/adverbial phrases of time or place and the other one is not time or place adverbs/adverbial phrases. The materials used in the experiment were 9 sentences for the each subcategory. One male and one female English native speakers participated in this experiment. Their reading speeches were recorded on Digital Audio Tape. Their speech data were analyzed by using Pitchworks program. The results of this experiment show pitch accented ratio is somewhat in inverse proportion to the degree of predictability.

• 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.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.245-253
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• 2000

In this paper, we implement an elementary system to correct accents and pronunciations in English words spoken by non-native English speakers. In case of the accent evaluation, energy and pitch information are used to find stressed syllables, and then we extract the segment information of input patterns using a dynamic time warping method to discriminate and evaluate accent position. For the pronunciation evaluation, we utilize the segment information using the same algorithm as in accent evaluation, and perform the spectral distance measure for each phoneme between input patterns and reference patterns. Based on these spectral distances, we decide whether to recommend the pronunciation correction or not. Our results show that 98 percent of accent and 71 percent of pronunciation evaluation agree with the perceptual measure.

• MALSORI
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• no.47
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• pp.15-29
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• 2003

When intonation in French is analysed in terms of a multi-dimentional and hierarchical structure, each of the prosodic units such as accent phrases(having different combinations of the basic tonemes L and H), pre-sentencial and post-sentencial long pauses, intonation phrases(containing boundary intonation), as well as intermediate phrases can be considered being realized on a separate tier. Unlike on the tiers where accent phrases and intonation phrases occur, an intonation rhythm consisting of plateaus is realised on that of intermediate phrases. This intonation rhythm consisting of plateaus is one of the significant factors that lead a basic French metrical rhythm. This paper first shows the types of combinations of the basic tonemes L and H found in French accent phrases. Secondly, this paper examines the roles intermediate phrases and plateaus play in French. Finally, this paper argues that intermediate phrases are the metrical units actually adopted as real utterance units in French.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.235-252
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to characterize the intonational realizations of vocatives in comparison with those of appositives in English statements and questions, and to compare the realizations produced by English native speakers with those of Korean students. Unlike Pierrehumbert(1980), in which the tag expressions do not have pitch accents, Beckman & Pierrehumbert(1986) proposed that the vocatives have a special status in tonal alignment and duration and that they form an independent phrase with pitch accent. Our results reinforce Beckman & Pierrehumbert(1986): both English native speakers and Korean students realize the vocatives in terms of rising tone, and the appositives in terms of both falling tone in statements and rising tone in questions. Moreover, they pronounced the nouns before vocatives longer than those before appositives. However, native speakers impose the low phrase tone before vocatives in statements and the high tone in questions; whereas, Korean students either put the low phrase tone on pitch contours of both statements and questions, or tend to pause before vocatives, thereby constituting an intonational phrase.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2000

Background and Objectives : Accent method is one of holistic approaches for behavior readjustment of voice therapy The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the accent method of voice therapy for the patients who have no improvement after LMS. Materials and Methods : Of the patients who had been undergone LMS during the period from Jan. 1999 to Dec. 1999, medical records of 38 patients who had not been improved were studied retrospectively. 19 patients(treatment group) were applied accent method and the other 19 patients(control group) refused voice therapy. The voice of all the patients of both group were analysed with CSL and Aerophone II programs in pre- and post operative period. The voice of treatment group were analysed with Visi-Pitch II program before the application of accent method and after the completion of accent method. Then, the results were compared using paired t-test. Results : The results of voice analysis were not different statistically between pre- and postoperative examination in both group. After application of accent method in the treatment group, fundamental frequency(F$_{0}$) of male, relative average pertubation, and shimmer were revealed significant differences(p＜0.01), and decrease in grade(G) scale and roughness(R) scale were statistically Important in perceptual analysis using GRBAS criteria(p＜0.01). But $F_0$ of female, maximal phonation time and S to Z ratio were not revealed significant differences. Conclusions : Accent method of voice therapy may be as a supplement- ary therapy in the patients who were not improved after surgery.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.111-128
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• 2004

In English, a focused word with new information receives a pitch accent. This paper examines how English native speakers and Korean speakers produce and perceive focus in English yes-no questions. The production experiments show that native speakers realize an appropriate intonation of yes-no questions, in which a focused word has a low pitch accent followed by a high phrasal accent and a high boundary tone. However, Korean speakers usually give a high tone to a focused word. In a like manner, the perception experiments show that English native speakers judge a word with a low tone to be focused, while Korean speakers have difficulty in comprehending a focused word realized as a low tone. And it is found that Korean speakers tend to perceive low tones on sentence initial and final focused words better than those on sentence medial focused words, and they often perceive a word with a relatively high fundamental frequency or a sharp rise of fundamental frequency as a focused word. This paper shows that Korean speakers have trouble to produce and perceive an appropriate tonal pattern of a focused yes-no question, and that can cause confusion in a conversation with native speakers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.21-35
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• 2007

This paper attempts to investigate phonetic substances of the stress patterns of English compounds and noun phrases, showing that the theoretically derived stress structures are not consistent with the accentual patterns in real utterances. Even though it has been long claimed that compounds have the stress pattern [1 3] and that noun phrases, [2 1] as in Chomsky & Halle (1968), their difference has not been yet explored empirically or phonetically. I present a phonetic experiment conducted to see if there is any difference along the tonal contours, mostly focusing on their pitch accent distribution. 36 different compounds and 36 different noun phrases included in carrier sentences were examined, and they were varied in position within a sentence. Results showed that various accentual patterns were produced, and among them, [H* X] predominantly occurs in all three positions in both compounds and noun phrases, whereas the patterns [X H*] and [X X] appear relatively more frequently in final position than in initial and medial position. Furthermore, the pattern [Ac + No], in which the preceding element is pitch-accented with no accent on the following one, is the major stress pattern in both compounds and noun phrases and in all three sentence positions. This suggests that there seems to be no difference in accentual patterns between compounds and noun phrases, which is not consistent with the hypothesis. The results are interpreted as saying that the preceding element alone tends to be prominent with no accent following it both in compounds and noun phrases, and that therefore, theoretically speculated phonological claims are not always phonetically supported.