• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

This study introduces an automated Praat script allowing optimal formant analysis for children's vowels. Using Burg's algorithm in Praat, formants can be extracted by setting the maximum formant value and the number of formants. The optimal formant setting was determined by identifying the two conditions, F1 and F2, with minimum standard deviations. When applying the optimal formant setting determined by the script, the results of normality tests were not significant among all vowels except /e/ for the maximum formant value, and among the vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /ʌ/ for the number of formants. This indicates that when analyzing the formants of children's vowel sounds, the unilateral application of a parameter setting (the maximum formant value and the number of formants) to all vowels is problematic. The performance of the optimal formant setting script was evaluated along with 3 different algorithm in order to determine whether it properly extracts formants for children's vowels. To this end, Korean monophghongs of 6-year-old children were collected and the Praat scripts were applied to the data. Resultant Formant plots and statistical analysis showed that optimum_script and qtone_script, which links to the perceptual unit, performed very well in formant extraction compared to the remaining 2 scripts.

• MALSORI
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• no.33_34
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• pp.57-69
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• 1997

In this paper, 1 will try to examine the aspects of formants, based on the LPC analysis. In this analysis, five Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e, o) will experience two kinds of experiments: vowels in isolated forms, and vowels in carrier sentences. The analysis results of Japanese vowels of the Japanese natives show a peculiar feature that Japanese vowels form respective vowel groups. Each Japanese vowel makes a statistically significant difference. In the Fl analysis of the vowels grouped by the informant's sex, Japanese vowel (a) shows the greatest standard deviation without regard to the informant's sex. In the F2 analysis of Japanese vowels, each vowel has a statistically significant difference. The fact that the male's [u] shows great standard deviation means that there is a great difference of the frontness of the tongue among the Japanese males in articulating [u]. Isolated vowels and carried vowels show statistically little significance between Fl and F2 frequency values. In another contrastive analysis between the isolated vowel group and the carried vowel group, whether a vowel is articulated in isolation or in a sentence appears to have little effect on its formant frequency.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.9-13
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• 2005

The aim of this paper is to analyze the vowel lengthening in Korean, whose function is distinctive in the word's level. In this paper, I examined two acoustic parameters : vowel length and formants(F1 and F2) to distinguish or to identify the long vowel and his short correspondant, for exemple, /a:/ and /a/. According to the results of experimental analysis and to the discussion on the vowel length's relation and its influence to Korean phonological system, I considered a vowel lengthening as a prosodeme, so as a prosodic element in Korean phonological system.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1994.06a
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• pp.971-976
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• 1994

A speech display system is developed for the evaluation and the training of speech utterance. The speech is analyzed by linear predictive technique every 5 ms and the frequencies of the lowest two spectral local peaks P1 and P2 are extracted. The vowel trakectory is displayed using those frequencies on th P1-P2 plane. In most cases, P1 and P2 correspond to the first and the second formants, but in the case of indistinct utterance, the correspondence between the local spectral peaks and the formants tends to fall into disorder. And the system is considered to be useful for the evaluation of speech quality. The examples of some words uttered by normal speakers and some patients with difficulty in utterance are compared each other for the discussion of the effectiveness of the system.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.97-100
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• 2005

The aim of the present study is to compare the vowel formants between generations in Daegu dialect. 20 Daegu dialect speakers were participated in this study; 10 were in their 40's, the other 10were in their 20's. As a result, the distance of /ㅣ/ and /ㅐ/, and, /ㅡ/ and /ㅓ/ in 20's is further than 40's, while the distance of /ㅗ/ and in 20's is closer than 40's. It seems reasonable to conclude that vowels in Daegu dialect change to have their own stable space, but /ㅗ/ and /ㅜ/ does not.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2014

The current study presents an instrumental phonetic analysis of Korean monophthong vowels in the early twentieth century Seoul Korean, based on audio recordings of elementary school textbooks Botonghakgyo Joseoneodokbon (Korean Reading Textbook for Elementary School). The data examined in this study were a list of the Korean mono syllables (Banjeol), and a short passage, recorded by one 41-year-old male speaker in 1935, as well as a short passage recorded by one 11-year-old male speaker in 1935. The Korean monophthongs were examined in terms of acoustic analysis of the vowel formants (F1, F2) and compared to those recorded by 18 male speakers of Seoul Korean in 2013. The results show that in 1935, 1) /e/ and /ɛ/ were clearly separated in the vowel space; 2) /o/ and /u/ were also clearly separated without any overlapping values; 3) some tokens of /y/ and /ø/ were produced as monophthongs, not as diphthongs. Based on the results, we can observe the historical change of the Korean vowels over 80-90 years such as 1) /e/ and /ɛ/ have been merged; and 2) /o/ has been raised and overlapped with /u/.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2014

This study investigates twenty four Korean females' production of English front vowels focusing on the distinction in /i/ vs /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ vs /${\ae}$/ and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels compared with those of native English speakers. The Korean learners were asked to read a textbook passage which includes ten sentences including target vowels. The major results indicate that: (1) Korean learners have trouble producing a distinct version (tense and lax) of front vowels in the paragraph reading; (2) The vowel space of the stressed vowels in a paragraph is smaller than that of embedded sentences; and (3) The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the Korean learners is similar to that of the native English speakers. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation teaching for the Korean learners of English vowels and realization of English stress.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.521-528
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• 1996

This presentation explores on the perceptual characteristics of the lateral sound /l/ in CV syllables. At initial position we found that /l/ has well marked formant transitions. Then several questions arise: 1) are these formant structures dependent on the following vowel\ulcorner. 2) Are the formant transitions giving an additional cue for the identification\ulcorner Considering that the French vocalic system presents a greater variety of vowels than Spanish, several experiments were designed to verify to what extent a more extensive range of vocalic timbres contribute to the perception of /l/. Natural emissions of /l/ produced in Argentine Spanish and Canadian French CV syllables were recorded, where V was successively /i, e, a, o, u/ for Spanish and /i, e, $\varepsilon$, a, $\alpha$, o, u, y, \phi$/ for French. For each item, the segment C was maintained and V was replaced by cutting & splicing by each of the remaining vowels without transitions. Results of the identification tests for Spanish show that natural /l/ segments with low Fl and high formants F3, F4 can be clearly identified in the /i, e, u/ vowel contexts without transitions. For French subjects the combination of /l/ with a vowel without transitions reflected correct identifications for its own original vowel context in /e, $\varepsilon$, y, $\phi$/. For both languages, in all these combinations, F1 values remained rather steady along the syllable. In the case of /o, u/ very likely the F2 difference lead to a variety of perceptions of the original /l/. For example in Ilul, French subjects reported some identifications of /l/ as a vowel, mainly /y/. Our observations reinforce the importance of F1 as a relevant cue for /l/, and the incidence of the relative distance between formants frequencies of both components.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.362-366
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• 1996

This paper is generally divided in 2 parts. One is the study on vowels about korean singer's lyric song in view of Daniel Jones' Cardinal Vowel. The other is acoustic study on vowels in my singing about korean lyric song. Analysis data are KBS concert video tape and CSL's. NSP file on my singing and Informants are famous singers i.e. 3 sopranos, 1 mezzo, 2 tenors, 1baritone, and me. Analysis aim is to find out Korean 8 vowels([equation omitted]) quality in singing. The methods of descrition are used in closed vowels, half closed vowels, half open vowels, open vowels and rounded vowels, unroundes vowels and formants. The study of the former is while watching the monitor screen to stop the scene that is to be analysixed. The study of the latter is to analysis the spectrogram converted by CSL's. SP file. Analysis results are an follows: Visual and auditory korean vowels quality in singing have the 3 tendency. One is the tendency of more rounded than is usual Korean vowels. Another is the tendency of centralized to center point in Cardinal Vowel and the other is the tendency of diversity in vowel quality. Acoustic analysis is studied by means of 4 formants. Fl and F2 show similiar step in spoken. In Fl there is the same formant values. This seems to vocal organization be perceived the singign situation. The width of F3 is the widest of all, so F3 may be the characteristics in singing. In conclude, the characteristics of vowels in Korean lyric songs are seems to have the tendencies of rounding, centralizing to center point in Cardinal Vowel, diversity in vowel quality and, F3'widest width in compared with usual Korean vowels.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.287-301
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the same vowel sounds are perceived differently by the two local dialect speakers, Seoul dialect speakers (SDS) and Kyungnam dialect speakers (KDS), whose vowel systems differ each other. In the first experiment SDS and KDS heard vowels synthesized in vowel space with F1 by F2 and categorized them into one of 10 Korean monophthongs. The results showed that SDS and KDS perceived the synthesized vowels differently. For example, /$\varepsilon$ versus /e/ contrast, ${\o}$/, and /y/ are differentiated by SDS, whereas they are perceptually confused by KDS. We also observed that /i/ could not be perceived unless the vowel synthesis included F3 or higher formants. In the second experiment SDS and KDS performed the similarity rating task of 10 synthesized Korean monophthongs. Two-dimensional MDS solution based on the similarity rating scores was obtained for each dialect group. The first dimension can be named 'vowel advancement' and the second 'vowel height'. The comparison of the two MDS solutions showed that the overall psychological distances among the vowels are shorter in KDS than SDS and that especially the distance between /$\Lambda$/ and /i/ is shorter in KDS than SDS. The result suggested that perception or mental representation of vowels depends on the vowel system of the listener's dialect or language. Further research problems were discussed in the final section.