• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.109-115
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• 2014

Fricated nuclei in Nuosu Yi were found to be more correctly described as fricated vowels, rather than syllabic fricatives due to the presence of clear formant structures typical of front vowels. In this exploratory study, two types of fricated nuclei were examined: retroflex "yr" and non-retroflex "y". The retroflex nucleus "yr" had higher F1 and lower F3 than non-retroflex "y", indicating a lower tongue height. On the other hand, F2 was found to correlate not with nucleus retroflexion, but instead with onset consonant retroflexion: F2 was higher following retroflex onsets, in both vowels. This effect was persistent through the entire vowel, suggesting a phonological effect, rather than a coarticulatory one. Interpretation of the F2 results require accompanying articulatory data since the usual coupling of F2 and tongue backness does not always hold for retroflex vowels. Examining the articulation of the fricated nuclei in Nuosu Yi is a direction for future research.

• The Journal of Engineering Research
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 1997

This paper describes how to represent varations of feature parameters to improve recognition of continuous speech. For speech recognition, feature parameters, which are formant frequencies, pitches, logarithmic energies and zero crossing retes are used in general. But, their values and variations depend on speakers, for example disparities between man and woman, and on their age. It is difficult to decide a priority the value of the variation width. Hence, we try to represent this variation by introducing fuzziness and recognize a continuous speech by fuzzy inference using fuzzy production rules.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.221-228
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to investigate the characteristics of the pronunciation of Korean vowels in patients with class III malocclusion. 11 adult male patients with class III malocclusion(mean ages 22.3 years) and four adult males with normal occlusion(mean ages 26.5 years) were selected for the analysis of eight Korean monophthongs /ㅣ, ㅔ, ㅐ, ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅡ, ㅜ/. The values and relationships of F1, F2 and F3 were derived from the stable section of target vowel in each sentence, and the analysis using formant plots and vowel triangles' distance and area was conducted to find the features of two groups' vowel distributions. Consequently, it was identified that the pronunciation of males patients with class III malocclusion showed high values of F1 in the low vowels, high values of F2 in the back vowels, and remarkably low position of /ㅏ/. The vowel triangle suggested that the triangle areas of male patients with class III malocclusion were shown wider vertically and narrower horizontally than those of males with normal occlusion. These characteristics could reflect the structural features of class III malocclusion such as the prognathic mandible, low tongue position, and advancement of back position of the tongue.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.159-166
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• 2014

In this paper, we examine the role of emotional acoustic cues including both prosody and voice quality parameters for the modification of a word sense. For the extraction of prosody parameters and voice quality parameters, we used 60 pieces of speech data spoken by six speakers with five different emotional states. We analyzed eight different emotional acoustic cues, and used a discriminant analysis technique in order to find the dominant sequence of acoustic cues. As a result, we found that anger has a close relation with intensity level and 2nd formant bandwidth range; joy has a relative relation with the position of 2nd and 3rd formant values and intensity level; sadness has a strong relation only with prosody cues such as intensity level and pitch level; and fear has a relation with pitch level and 2nd formant value with its bandwidth range. These findings can be used as the guideline for find-tuning an emotional spoken language generation system, because these distinct sequences of acoustic cues reveal the subtle characteristics of each emotional state.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.19-34
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• 1998

The author collected and compared midsagittal, coronal, coronal oblique, and transversal images of Korean monophthongs /a, i, e, o, u, i, v/ produced by a healthy male speaker using 1.5 T MR, VISION. Area was measured by computer software after tracing the cross-section at different points along the tract. Results showed that the width of the oral and pharyngeal cavities varied compensatorily from each other on the midsagittal dimension. Formant frequency values estimated from the area functions of the seven vowels showed a strong correlation (r=0.978) with those analyzed from the spoken vowels. Moreover, almost all of 35 students who listened to the synthesized vowels from area data perceived the synthesized vowels as equivalent to the spoken ones. Movement of constriction points of vowel /u/ with wider lip opening sounded /i/ and led to slight changes in vowel quality. Jaw and tongue movement led to major volume variation with an anatomical limitation. Each comer vowel varied systematically from a somewhat constant volume of the average area. Thus, the author proposed that any simulation studies related to vocal tract area variation should reflect its constant volume. The results may be helpful to verify exact measurement of the vocal tract area through vowel synthesis and a simulation study before having any operation of the vocal tract.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to know the acoustic characteristics of voice under stressful and relaxed conditions. Ten undergraduate male students participated in this study and produced 아, 에, 이 vowels in English reading, difficult Korean reading under stressful conditions, and easy Korean reading under relaxed conditions. After that, F0, jitter, shimmer, NHR, F1, F2, and F3 values were measured and analyzed. The results of this study demonstrate that speech parameters related to stress are jitter, shimmer, and NHR in that these values are lower under relaxed situations (easy Korean reading) than that of stressful situations (English and difficult Korean reading). This study will be a foundation to verify that the analysis of acoustic characteristics can serve as a quantitative tool for measuring stress levels.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.97-105
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• 2006

The objective of this study was to analyze the acoustic patterns of Japanese /t/ produced by 40 Korean speakers in order to find an effective method of teaching it to Koreans. The experimental data consisted of 400 /t/ phonemes in word initial or non-initial positions of 10 words. Informants were in their twenties and raised in Daejeon and the surrounding area. Results showed that there were distinctive trends in duration and intensity of the major and non-major groups productions. Both groups pronounced the phoneme longer than the native speakers with more open mouths but with less loudness. The formant analysis showed that F1 values of the Japanese /t/ pronounced by Japanese major group were lower than those of the non-major. Its F2 values by the major group were higher than those of the non-major, which would suggest that the Koreans produced the tongue blade in more frontal position than the native speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.11-18
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• 2010

This study compared classical operatic singing and applied music singing using the vocal assessment software, Dr. Speech and SPEAD from Lx Speech Studio. Participants in this study included: eight female operatic singers (mean 22.6 yrs, average career 7.5 yrs); eight male operatic singers (mean 25.6 yrs, average career 7.3 yrs); eight female applied music singers (mean 25.1 yrs, average career 6.1 yrs); and eight male applied music singers (mean 27.6 yrs, average career 6.8 yrs). The results demonstrated significantly higher closed quotient values in female applied music singers during singing (p<.05). In addition, higher closed quotient values in speaking were presented in male classical singers and longer MPT was obtained in female operatic singers (p<.05). Furthermore, singer's formants were identified in all male operatic singers and in three female operatic singers. In contrast, only one applied music male and one female singer showed singer's formants while singing.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.514-514
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• 1996

Igbo, a new Benue Congo language has a vowel harmony system which, like that of Akan, is based on the pharynx size or tongue root position. In this study we examine Igbo vowel harmony with particular reference to assimilatory patterns of vowels in different harmony sets. This is to gain some insight into the factors involved in Igbo vowel assimilation, and to establish to what extent reports on Akan vowel assimilation are validated in Igbo. Tokens of the eight phonemic vowels of Standard Igbo are recorded from three native speakers of Igbo. The vowels are acoustically investigated (using the LPC analysis of CSL) in individual lexical items and within carefully designed carrier phrases. The F1 and F2 values of the vowels are obtained as these formant values are generally useful in establishing the salient characteristics of vowels. Vowels from the harmony sets are juxtaposed in the carrier phrases to ascertain the extent of assimilation. Results of the investigation show that the F1 values, to a large extend, are enough to characterize these vowels. The (-Expanded) vowels have higher F1 values than their (+Expanded) counterpart. Where there is an overlap in F1 values for some vowels the F1 bandwidth values serve to distinguish between the vowels. The overlap often reported in Akan for /I/ and /e/ on the one hand and /${\mho}$/ and /o/ on the other is not validated in Igbo. While the F1 values for these pairs of vowels are quite similar for one of our speakers, there is an appreciable difference between the F1 values of these vowels for the other two speakers. There is however an overlap for /e/ and /o/ for one of the speakers. Assimilations are generally regressive across word boundaries. It is, however, necessary to point out that the general perceptual impression that one of the vowels completely assimilates to the other, is not borne out by our investigation. Most of our F1 and F2 values for the vowels in individual lexical items are altered in assimilations. This then suggests that assimilation involving these vowels is partial rather than complete. The emerging 'allophones' are acoustically similar to the (+Expanded) vowel involved in the assimilation, that is when vowels from different harmony sets are involved. We conclude that while assimilation of Igbo vowels involves some phonological considerations, phonetic factors appear to be permanent in deciding the final form of the vowels.