• MALSORI
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• no.49
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• pp.159-174
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• 2004

The development of the durational component of prosody modelling was overviewed and discussed in text-to-speech conversion of spoken English and Korean, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. The possibility of integrating linguistic feature effects into the duration modelling of TTS systems was also investigated. This paper claims that current approaches to language timing synthesis still require an understanding of how segmental duration is affected by context. Three modelling approaches were discussed: sequential rule systems, Classification and Regression Tree (CART) models and Sums-of-Products (SoP) models. The CART and SoP models show good performance results in predicting segment duration in English, while it is not the case in the SoP modelling of spoken Korean.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.215-218
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• 2012

본 논문에서는 한국어 대화 처리를 위한 통계기반 음성언어이해 시스템에 대해 기술한다. 음성언어이해시스템은 대화처리에서 음성 인식된 문장으로부터 사용자의 의도를 인식하여 의미표현으로 표현하는 기능을 담당한다. 한국어의 특성을 반영한 실용적인 음성언어이해 시스템을 위해서 강건성과 적용성, 확장성 등이 요구된다. 이를 위해 본 시스템은 음성언어의 특성상 구조분석을 하지 않고, 마이닝 기법을 이용하여 사용자 의도 표현을 생성하는 방식을 취하고 있다. 또한 한국어에서 나타나는 특징들에 대한 처리를 위해 자질 추가 및 점규화 처리 등을 수행하였다. 정보서비스용 대화처리 시스템을 대상으로 개발되고 있고, 차량 정보서비스용 학습 코퍼스를 대상으로 실험을 하여 문장단위 정확률로 약 89%의 성능을 보이고 있다.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-39
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• 2023

Recent research in usage-based Second Language Acquisition has provided new insights into second language (L2) learners' development of formulaic language (Wulff, 2019). The current study examines the use of phrase-frames, which are recurring sequences of words including one or more variable slots (e.g., it is * that), in written and oral production data from Asian learners of English across four proficiency levels (beginner, low-intermediate, high-intermediate, advanced) and native English speakers. The variability, predictability, and discourse functions of the most frequent 4-word phrase-frames from the written essay and spoken dialogue sub-corpora of the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE) were analyzed and then compared across groups and modes. The results revealed that while learners' phrase-frames in writing became more variable and unpredictable as proficiency increased, no clear developmental patterns were found in speaking, although all groups used more fixed and predictable phrase-frames than the reference group. Further, no developmental trajectories in the functions of the most frequent phrase-frames were found in both modes. Additionally, lower-level learners and the reference group used more variable phrase-frames in speaking, whereas advanced-level learners showed more variability in writing. This study contributes to a better understanding of the development of L2 phraseological competence.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.263-271
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• 2008

This paper presents a Korean conversational agent system in a mobile environment using natural language processing techniques. The aim of a conversational agent in mobile environment is to provide natural language interface and enable more natural interaction between a human and an agent. Constructing such an agent, it is required to develop various natural language understanding components and effective utterance generation methods. To understand spoken style utterance, we perform morphosyntactic analysis, shallow semantic analysis including modality classification and predicate argument structure analysis, and to generate a system utterance, we perform example based search which considers lexical similarity, syntactic similarity and semantic similarity.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.129-136
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• 2010

In this paper, we present an Example-based Dialogue System for English conversation tutoring. It aims to provide intelligent one-to-one English conversation tutoring instead of old fashioned language education with static multimedia materials. This system can understand poor expressions of students and it enables green hands to engage in a dialogue in spite of their poor linguistic ability, which gives students interesting motivation to learn a foreign language. And this system also has educational functionalities to improve the linguistic ability. To achieve these goals, we have developed a statistical natural language understanding module for understanding poor expressions and an example-based dialogue manager with high domain scalability and several effective tutoring methods.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.15-24
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• 2023

One of the objectives and aspirations of scientists and engineers ever since the development of computers has been to interact naturally with machines. Hence features of artificial intelligence (AI) like natural language processing and natural language generation were developed. The field of AI that is thought to be expanding the fastest is interactive conversational systems. Numerous businesses have created various Virtual Personal Assistants (VPAs) using these technologies, including Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Assistant, among others. Even though many chatbots have been introduced through the years to diagnose or treat psychological disorders, we are yet to have a user-friendly chatbot available. A smart generative cognitive behavioral therapy with spoken dialogue systems support was then developed using a model Persona Perception (P2) bot with Generative Pre-trained Transformer-2 (GPT-2). The model was then implemented using modern technologies in VPAs like voice recognition, Natural Language Understanding (NLU), and text-to-speech. This system is a magnificent device to help with voice-based systems because it can have therapeutic discussions with the users utilizing text and vocal interactive user experience.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.1047-1065
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• 2010

English inversion constructions are not only hard for non-native speakers to learn but also difficult to teach mainly because of their intriguing grammatical and discourse properties. This paper addresses grammatical issues in learning or teaching the so-called 'predicate inversion (PI)' construction (e.g., Equally important in terms of forest depletion is the continuous logging of the forests). In particular, we chart the grammatical (distributional, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) properties of the PI construction, and argue for adata-driven teaching for English grammar. To depart from the arm-chaired style of grammar teaching (relying on author-made simple sentences), our teaching method introduces a datadriven teaching. With total 25 university students in a grammar-related class, students together have analyzed the British Component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB), containing about one million words distributed across a variety of textual categories. We have identified total 290 PI sentences (206 from spoken and 87 from written texts). The preposed syntactic categories of the PI involve five main types: AdvP, PP, VP(ed/ing), NP, AP, and so, all of which function as the complement of the copula. In terms of discourse, we have observed, supporting Birner and Ward's (1998) observation that these preposed phrases represent more familiar information than the postposed subject. The corpus examples gave us the three possible types: The preposed element is discourse-old whereas the postposed one is discourse-new as in Putting wire mesh over a few bricks is a good idea. Both preposed and postposed elements can also be discourse new as in But a fly in the ointment is inflation. These two elements can also be discourse old as in Racing with him on the near-side is Rinus. The dominant occurrence of the PI in the spoken texts also supports the view that the balance (or scene-setting) in information structure is the main trigger for the use of the PI construction. After being exposed to the real data and in-depth syntactic as well as informationstructure analysis of the PI construction, it is proved that the class students have had a farmore clear understanding of the construction in question and have realized that grammar does not mean to live on by itself but tightly interacts with other important grammatical components such as information structure. The study directs us toward both a datadriven and interactive grammar teaching.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.133-156
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• 2007

Although the understanding of English tense system is a crucial factor for communicative English learning and teaching for EFL students, it has been neglected over the years. As with other areas of the grammar, difficulties may arise from the nature of the system itself or from differences between time, tense and aspect. Consequently, many learners face a considerable difficulty with the English tense system as they are more often unable to grasp the basic conceptual differences of present/present continuous, past/present perfect, will/be going to along with many others. More concerning fact is that lots of instructors or so-called native English teachers seem not to be aware of the importance of teaching English tense system. The purpose of this study is to review and examine various theories and practical usages of tense in order to establish and/or present better methods for teaching tenses. This paper is focused on comparatively exact distinction of time, physical notion from tense, grammatical category as well as sequences of tenses in view of school grammar and communicative function. At the end or middle of each chapter, efficient teaching and learning techniques or strategies on tenses are suggested to help instructors or learners who relentlessly face confusions in understanding tense and its usage for communicative English learning and teaching. This study attempts to influence learners' ability to recognize and write tense in authentic contexts not to mention spoken English.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

This paper investigated the phoneme distribution and phonological processes of orthographic and pronounced phrasal words in light of syllable structure in the Seoul Corpus in order to provide linguists and phoneticians with a clearer understanding of the Korean language system. To achieve the goal, the phrasal words were extracted from the transcribed label scripts of the Seoul Corpus using Praat. Following this, the onsets, peaks, codas and syllable types of the phrasal words were analyzed using an R script. Results revealed that k0 was most frequently used as an onset in both orthographic and pronounced phrasal words. Also, aa was the most favored vowel in the Korean syllable peak with fewer phonological processes in its pronounced form. The total proportion of all diphthongs according to the frequency of the peaks in the orthographic phrasal words was 8.8%, which was almost double those found in the pronounced phrasal words. For the codas, nn accounted for 34.4% of the total pronounced phrasal words and was the varied form. From syllable type classification of the Corpus, CV appeared to be the most frequent type followed by CVC, V, and VC from the orthographic forms. Overall, the onsets were more prevalent in the pronunciation more than the codas. From the results, this paper concluded that an analysis of phoneme distribution and phonological processes in light of syllable structure can contribute greatly to the understanding of the phonology of spoken Korean.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.31
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• pp.287-308
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• 2013

Russian language tends to be quite open to borrowing. In Russian it has been for a long time the conventional way of expanding the lexicon, accepting many words from adjacent languages, including Church Slavic. In the contemporary Russian English has been the main source for loanwords. There are several linguistic factors for lexical borrowing: 1. the necessity of denominating new facts, phenomena or concepts, 2. the necessity of differentiating concepts, 3. the necessity of specializing new concepts, 4. the introduction of new international terms, 5. the increase of periphrastic expressions, 6. the needs for the more elegant and modern words. These factors have caused borrowing to enlarge the component of the lexicon and phrasal expressions, but excessive use of foreign words has brought about negative effects such as linguistic pollution. Some borrowed words are assimilated without serious conflicts, but other words undergo semantic changes in confrontation to existing words of similar meanings. These types of semantic changes comprise total change of meaning, reduction of semantic scale and extension of meaning. Semantic changes are caused by linguistic factors such as lexical conflict with existing words or by socio-culural factors such as misunderstanding of foreign words. And extension of meaning shows two types: qualitative extension and quantitative extension. The first means extending the semantic scope of a borrowed word and the latter - increasing the number of its sememe. In contemporary Russian language we can witness two productive phenomena: qualitative extension by socio-cultural factors, in which words with negative nuances are changed into those with positive ones and professional terms become common words, losing their professional meanings. On the other hand, by quantative extension some loanwords change their concrete meanings into abstract ones. In such cases loanwords acquire the additional meanings of abstractness, putting aside their original concrete meanings as the basic. On the contrary, the qualitative extension of adding the special meaning to general words or giving the concrete meaning to abstract words is not productive. And it is rarely witnessed that words of positive nuances are negatively used. It is considered that such cases are partly restricted in the spoken language or the jargon. Such phenomena may happen by the incomplete understanding of English words.