• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.91-107
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• 2014

The syllable frequency effect is defined as the inhibitory effect that words starting with high frequency syllable generate a longer lexical decision latency and a larger error rate than words starting with low frequency syllable do. Researchers agree that the reason of the inhibitory effect is the interference from syllable neighbors sharing a target's first syllable at the lexical level and the degree of the interference effect correlates with the number of syllable neighbors or stronger syllable neighbors which have a higher word frequency. However, although the syllable frequency can be classified as the syllable type and token frequency, previous studies in visual word recognition have used the syllable frequency without the classification. Recently Conrad, Carreiras, & Jacobs (2008) demonstrated that the syllable type frequency might reflect a sub-lexical processing level including matching from letters to syllables and the syllable token frequency might reflect competitions between a target and higher frequency words of syllable neighbors in the whole word lexical processing level. Therefore, the present study investigated their proposals using word naming tasks. Generally word naming tasks are more sensitive to sub-lexical processing. Thus, the present study expected a facilitative effect of high syllable type frequency and a null effect of high syllable token frequency. In Experiment 1, words starting with high syllable type frequency generated a faster naming latency than words starting with low syllable type frequency with holding syllable token frequency of them. In Experiment 2, high syllable token frequency also created a shorter naming time than low syllable token frequency with holding their syllable type frequency. For that reason, we rejected the propose of Conrad et al. and suggested that both type and token syllable frequency could relate to the sub-lexical processing.

• MALSORI
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• no.57
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• pp.31-42
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to observe how Korean learners perceive an English weak syllable in words containing WS syllable pattern. According to the automated discrimination task using E-Prime, the ratio of correct answer(%) and reaction time of the stimuli with same syllable patterns were respectively higher and faster than those with different syllable patterns. Specifically, in the stimuli with different syllable patterns, the frequency(familiarity) of stressed word succeeding weak syllable and whether the weak syllable had coda in it were two important factors in distinguishing between a word with and without weak syllable. Even though the high English proficiency Koreans had faster reaction time than the low English proficiency Koreans, all Korean learners had a difficulty in perceiving the weak syllable at the beginning of a word.

• MALSORI
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• no.35_36
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• pp.13-24
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• 1998

This study aims at examining the relationship between tonal events and their related vowel and syllable duration in Korean. Two things were investigated: one is to see if there is a hierarchical relationship in prosodic unit-final-lengthening and the other is to see if accentual phrase initial high tone syllable gets lengthened. Generally, higher prosodic units show larger degree of lengthening of the final vowel and also final syllable duration than the lower ones except for accentual phrase: Mean duration of utterance-final or intonational-phrase-final syllable(and its vowels) was longer than that of accentual-phrase-final or word-final syllable(and its vowels). However, mean duration of accentual phrase final syllable was shorter than that of word final syllable. Mean vowel duration of accentual phrase initial high tone syllable was shorter than that of any other prosodic unit. Its mean syllable duration, however, was longer than that of accentual-phrase-final or word-final syllable, indicating that strong consonants(fortis and aspirated) frequently appear in the accentual phrase initial position and this position is a prosodically strong position showing longer duration as well as high tone.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.5 no.10
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• pp.1879-1890
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• 2011

Previous studies of syllable frequency effects have proposed that inhibitory effects due to high first syllable frequency were the products of competitions between activated lexical candidates within a lexical level. However, these studies have primarily used lexical decision tasks to examine the nature of syllable frequency effects. This study investigates whether a syllable frequency effect can arise in semantic categorization tasks and whether phonologically or orthographically defined syllables interact with semantically related variables such as morphological family size. If the syllable frequency effect was created by activations and competitions on a lexical level, it is highly possible that the effect was related to semantic categorization tasks. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, morphological family size and phonological syllable frequency were factorially manipulated. In Experiment 2, morphological family size and orthographic syllable frequency were factorially manipulated. The results demonstrate that morphemes have no relationship with phonological syllables but do with orthographic syllables. This suggests that phonological syllables and orthographic syllables have different roles in the syllable frequency effect on visual word recognition process.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.277-297
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• 2023

This study attempted to find out how lexical decision of two-syllable words or pseudo-words is affected by syllabic information, such as syllable frequency, syllable (i.e. vowel) type, and presence of final consonant (i.e. batchim), through the analysis of the Korean Lexicon Project Database (KLP-DB). Hierarchical regression of RT data showed that lexical decision of words was influenced by the frequency of the first syllable, the syllable type of the first and second syllables, batchim for the first and second syllables, and also by the interaction of the two syllable types and the interaction of syllable frequency and batchim of the second syllable. For pseudo-words lexical decision was influenced by the frequency of the first and second syllables, syllable type of the first syllable, and batchim for the first and second syllables, and also by the interaction of the two syllable frequencies, the interaction of the two syllable types, and the interaction of syllable frequency and batchim of the first syllable. Word frequency had a strong effect on lexical decision of words, while syllabic information had a stable effect on the lexical decision of pseudo-words. These results indicate that syllabic information should be seriously considered in constructing word and pseudo-word lists and interpreting lexical decision time. Understanding the effect of syllabic information will also contribute to the understanding of word recognition process.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.175-183
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• 2005

In this study, realization of strong and weak syllables in English by Korean leaners with low English proficiency was examined through experiment. The aspects of three acoustic characteristics-duration, pitch, amplitude-were measured and compared with native speakers of English. It was assumed that production of duration, pitch and amplitude of strong and weak syllable by Korean learners would be different from that of English native speakers. According to the production experiments, English native speakers produced strong syllable longer, higher and louder than weak syllable. However, Korean leaners produced strong syllable higher and louder than weak syllable, but not longer enough. Specifically, weak syllable by Korean leaners was longer and strong syllable shorter than native speakers. Furthermore, the difference in duration of syllables between Korean leaners and English native speakers is more significant than pitch and amplitude. As a result, the duration was more important cue for the realization of stress than pitch and amplitude. However, Korean leaners did not produce duration of stressed syllables as English native speakers did, even though they produce the pitch and amplitude of stressed syllable in a similar way to native speakers. The reasons for those were considered, too.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.99-107
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to investigate the syllable and phoneme frequencies in the spontaneous speech of some Korean children. Sixty four normally developing children aged from 2 to 5 were involved (male: female=1 : 1, 16 children in each age group). Fifty connected utterances were analyzed using the KCLA (Korean Computerized Language Analysis) 2.0 and Exel. The findings were as follows: 1) /i/ was the most frequently used syllable and was followed by /yo/, /k/, /s'/, /nen/ and so on. 2) The most frequently used Korean phonemes were syllable-initial consonant /k/, syllable- medial vowel /a/ and syllable-final consonant /n/. 3) All seven syllable final consonants (/p,t,k,m,n,n,l/) were used more frequently in the word-medial position than in the word-final position. Three syllable initial consonants(/k, I, s'/) were used more frequently in the word-medial position than in the word-initial position. The syllable and phoneme frequencies in the Korean children's spontaneous speech will provide valuable information in interpreting the severity of phonological disorder and in developing tools for the Korean phonological assessment and intervention.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2001

We proposed a probabilistic approach of using syllable bigrams to the word-spacing problem. Syllable bigrams are extracted and the frequencies are calculated for the large corpus of 12 million words. Based on the syllable bigrams, we performed three experiments: (1) automatic word-spacing, (2) detection and correction of word-spacing errors for spelling checker, and (3) automatic insertion of a space at the end of line in the character recognition system. Experimental results show that the accuracy ratios are 97.7 percent, 82.1 percent, and 90.5%, respectively.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.67-87
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to show how the coda of a syllable and word-final clusters are represented in the English syllable structure. Previous theories on the syllable assume that there is only one segment in the coda position. And, as we know, the theories that license only one segment in the coda make it difficult to syllabicate the word-final cluster appropriately when more than two segments in the word-final cluster are encountered. I considered three approaches: the previous syllable structure (Selkirk, 1982; Borowsky 1989), sonority sequencing (Giegerich, 1992; Roca, 1999) and feature analysis (Goldsmith, 1990), But, all the considered methods don't give us a satisfactory explanation regarding word-final clusters. Finally, I will suggest a modified syllable representation as an alternative by placing two different appendixes under the Phonological Word which forms a constituent above the syllable node. From this it is possible to explain the former problematic word-final clusters including morphological information asan inflectional suffix in the structure.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.3-20
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a segmentation unit for a Korean noun is a 'syllable' and whether the process of segmenting spoken words occurs at the lexical level. A syllable monitoring task was administered which required participants to detect an auditorily presented target from visually presented words. In Experiment 1, syllable neighborhood density of high frequency words which can be segmented into both CV-CVC and CVC-VC were controlled. The syllable effect and the neighborhood density effect were significant, and the syllable effect emerged differently depending on the syllable neighborhood density. Similar results were obtained in Experiment 2 where low frequency words were used. The significance of word frequency effect on syllable effect was also examined. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that the segmentation unit for a Korean noun is indeed a 'syllable', and this process can occur at the lexical level.