• MALSORI
• /
• no.54
• /
• pp.45-61
• /
• 2005

In this paper, we present a method of generating intonation contour for Korean text-to-speech (TTS) system and a method of synthesizing emotional speech, both based on Soft template mark-up language (Stem-ML), a novel prosody generation model combining mark-up tags and pitch generation in one. The evaluation shows that the intonation contour generated by Stem-ML is better than that by our previous work. It is also found that Stem-ML is a useful tool for generating emotional speech, by controling limited number of tags. Large-size emotional speech database is crucial for more extensive evaluation.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.69-81
• /
• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of prosody of ambiguous sentences in patients with right hemisphere damage(RHD). Methods: Sentences with each word prosodically focused were used to investigate. Several acoustic parameters such as intensity, F0, and duration were measured to identify characteristics of prosody in patients with lesions in the right hemisphere and normal controls. All speech samples were recorded using the Praat 4.3.14 software. Data were analyzed with the independent sample t-test using SPSS 18.0. Results: The results of this study are as follows: First, intensity of the first syllable of the focus word was different between the two groups in several sentences. Second, F0 was different between the two groups in all sentences. Third, duration was different between the groups in several sentences. Accordingly, prosody were varied and values of acoustic parameters differed due to the focus of utterance. The group with right hemisphere damage showed restricted prosody. Conclusions: Intensity, duration, and F0 are all used as elements of prosody in emphasizing structural and pragmatic meaning, but according to the focus, strength and duration were related to F0. In contrast, F0 has a significant linguistic difference, but there was a significant difference between the RHD and normal people, so F0 can be a discriminatory factor of rhyme evaluation of the right hemisphere damaged and it is necessary to accumulate more strong evidence through future research.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.89-105
• /
• 2005

This paper is a production study of the effects of Korean prosody on two voiceless coronal fricatives /$s^h$/ and /s*/. The target segments were embedded in four prosodic positions: initial to the Intonational Phrase or the Accentual Phrase, and medial to the Accentual Phrase or to the Prosodic Word. Acoustic measurements showed that the durational differences associated with the /$s^h$/ versus /s*/ contrast vary in magnitude in different prosodic positions, confirming the proposal that segmental properties are affected by prosodic categories. This suggests that any speech synthesizer should take into consideration prosodically conditioned durational variation.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.123-148
• /
• 2000

This paper investigates prosodic conditions for the epenthetic /n/ in Korean. It has been claimed that an epenthetic /n/ appears across prosodic words (Han 1994, Lee 1996). However, using acoustic data as well as aerodynamic data, I argue that the epenthetic /n/ does not always surface across all prosodic words, but that its appearance is prosodically restricted. I further demonstrate that it appears only across prosodic words within an accentual phrase. This finding provides empirical support for the intonation-based model of Korean prosodic structure studies.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2021

This study examined the characteristics of linguistic prosody in terms of cerebral lateralization in three groups of 9 healthy speakers and 14 speakers with a history of stroke (7 with left hemisphere damage (LHD), 7 with right hemisphere damage (RHD)). Specifically, prosodic characteristics related to speech rate, duration, pitch, and intensity were examined in three types of interrogative sentences (wh-questions, yes-no questions, alternative questions) with auditory perceptual evaluation. As a result, the statistically significant key variables showed flaws in production of the linguistic prosody in the speakers with LHD. The statistically significant variables were more insufficiently produced for wh-questions than for yes-no and alternative questions. This trend was particularly noticeable in variables related to pitch and speech rate. This result suggests that when Korean speakers process linguistic prosody, such as that of lexico-semantic and syntactic information in interrogative sentences, the left hemisphere seems to be superior to the right hemisphere.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.55-66
• /
• 2021

Proper prosody in reading allows the reader to naturally convey the meaning, which manifests as changes in pitch, loudness, and speech rate. Children with reading disability face difficulty in delivering information due to poor prosody. This study identified the difference in prosodic features between children with reading disabilities and nondisabled children through means of reading tasks. Reading tasks, according to sentence types (short sentences, assumptions/conditions, intentions, relative-clause), were recorded by 15 children studying in the 3rd to 6th grade in elementary school. Children with reading disability had a statistically significant wider range of pitch, slower speech rate, more frequent usage of pauses, longer total pause duration, and steeper pitch slope than nondisabled one in sentence-final and -medial words. Children with reading disability, therefore, exhibited a less natural and expressive reading than nondisabled children. Through this study, the characteristics of prosody observed in children with reading disability were identified and the need for an approach for effective intervention was also suggested.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.9-14
• /
• 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.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.121-131
• /
• 2002

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the characteristics of receptive and expressive language development of cleft palate infants aged under 3. Twenty-six cleft palate infants and 52 normal infants were grouped into 3 chronological age groups with 1 year intervals: less than 1, 1, and 2 years old. The cleft palate infants were divided into 2 groups: cleft palate only, and cleft lip & palate. Each mother of the infants was asked to complete the questionnaire, Sequenced Language Scale for Infants (SELSI). Receptive and Expressive language scores of SELSI were computed. The scores of receptive and expressive language were respectively analyzed into 4 categories of language: phonology/prosody, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. The results, concerning the differences of language development between the cleft palate and the normal infants, were as follows: (1) expressive language scores were significantly different at age 2 between the cleft palate and the normal infants; (2) cleft plate groups aged less than 1 and 1 showed lower scores of phonology/prosody of expressive language than the normal groups; (3) cleft palate group aged 2 showed lower scores than the normal group in semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. The results, concerning the characteristics of language development between the cleft palate only and the cleft lip & palate infants, were as follows: (1) the scores of expressive and receptive language were not statistically different between the 2 groups; (2) both groups did not show any difference in .the scores of phonology/ prosody, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics of receptive and expressive language.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
• /
• v.3 no.5
• /
• pp.1121-1129
• /
• 1996

To produce more natural speech in a Text-to-Speech system, the processing of the prosody and duration must be processing in advance, and then extracted the prosody and duration information by means of trial-and-error experiments. In this paper, a method is proposed to improve the naturalness in a Text-to Speech system using this information. As the results, the Text-to-Speech system proposed and implemented in this paper showed more natural speech synthesis than the systems, which do not use this information, did.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.28 no.2E
• /
• pp.43-50
• /
• 2009

To get more natural synthetic speech generated by a Korean TTS (Text-To-Speech) system, we have to know all the possible prosodic rules in Korean spoken language. We should find out these rules from linguistic, phonetic information or from real speech. In general, all of these rules should be integrated into a prosody-generation algorithm in a TTS system. But this algorithm cannot cover up all the possible prosodic rules in a language and it is not perfect, so the naturalness of synthesized speech cannot be as good as we expect. ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks) can be trained to learn the prosodic rules in Korean spoken language. To train and test ANNs, we need to prepare the prosodic patterns of all the phonemic segments in a prosodic corpus. A prosodic corpus will include meaningful sentences to represent all the possible prosodic rules. Sentences in the corpus were made by picking up a series of words from the list of PB (phonetically Balanced) isolated words. These sentences in the corpus were read by speakers, recorded, and collected as a speech database. By analyzing recorded real speech, we can extract prosodic pattern about each phoneme, and assign them as target and test patterns for ANNs. ANNs can learn the prosody from natural speech and generate prosodic patterns of the central phonemic segment in phoneme strings as output response of ANNs when phoneme strings of a sentence are given to ANNs as input stimuli.