• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2010

This study investigates the effect of pitch range reset in Korean listeners' processing of syntactically ambiguous participle structures. Unlike Japanese and English,in Korean, the downtrend or the reset of pitch range does not consistently differentiate Accentual Phrases (AP), a lower level of phrasing, from Intonational Phrases (IP), a higher level of phrasing. Therefore, we explore Korean listeners' comprehension patterns for syntactically ambiguous speech strings varying in 1) the relative height of F0 peaks across prosodic units, and 2) the types of prosodic phrasing, to see whether pitch range reset informs the recovery of syntactic structure even though it is not reflected in the intonational hierarchy in Korean. The results show that the hierarchical level of prosodic phrasing affects the parsing pattern of syntactic ambiguity. The pitch range reset also cued the location of syntactic boundaries, but this effect was confined to phrases across AP.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.89-101
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• 2003

This paper investigates edge effects on the relationship between the underlying tonal sequence and its surface realization in the IP-final Accentual Phrase within the Optimality Theoretic framework. I will examine the way in which AP tones are aligned with their associated syllables in IP-final position. In Korean. Jun's (1996) 'see-saw effect' does not allow any two identical tones if they are marking a boundary of a prosodic group. A phonetic experiment conducted in this paper suggests that the 'see-saw effect' only apply to H boundary tones. Furthermore, it will be shown that the timing of tonal peaks is determined through the ranking of a set of violable constraints. The AP tonal realization is achieved through the access to the global intonation in a complicated way. In the course of discussion, pitch patterns in IP-medial Accentual Phrase will also be discussed.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.31-44
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• 1994

The paper introduces several studies of various aspects of Korean phonology and phonetics for speech recognition and synthesis. The phonological and phonetic studies presented in this paper are : i) For a study of segmental phonology, we made an annotated list of Korean allophones and their corresponding alphabetic symbols to type into computers. ii) For a study of segmental phonetics, we present some acoustic regulations in Korean consonants according to their phonological environment within a word. iii) For a study of prosodic phonology, we suggest the phonological functions of prosodic features and their acoustic cues. iv) For a study of prosodic phonetics, we present the characteristic patterns of accent and intonation in Korean. v) Finally, we suggest some ways of using this phonological and phonetic knowledge for possible improvement of speech recognition and synthesis.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.303-318
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• 2003

This paper attempts to investigate the tonal implementations of English stress clash, arguing that a preceding stress shifts leftward when two lexical stresses conflict across word boundaries or that H* and L* pitch accents are alternatively manifested on the stressed syllables, establishing intonational peak and valley contours. We claim that the H*/L* alternation might be a tonal strategy to avoid stress clash, and that pitch could be solely manipulated to display a rhythmic effect with maintaining lexical stress. In the experiment, we examined two-word combinations whose boundaries involve stress clash, and divided them into two categories. One has the preceding words involving a heavy syllable ahead of stress to guarantee the place for a shifting stress and the other, a light syllable, in which case stress shift is completely prevented. We analyzed the distribution of pitch accents in the word combinations, focusing on the pitch configurations in the cases where stress should not be shifted. Results show that approximately 50% of the stimuli show stress shift in the heavy syllable combinations of the preceding words; the preceding stress is moved leftward within the word. The other 50% and the light syllable combinations show various pitch accents patterns; H* and L* alternation, deaccentuation of either stressed syllable, or L-insertion between two H* pitch accents, etc. We interpret this as a rhythmic effect of tone to avoid stress clash and suggest that a true stress clash would be confined into cases without H*/L* contours.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.405-414
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• 2007

This paper describes a preliminary work on prosody modeling aspect of a text-to-speech system for Thai. Specifically, the model is designed to predict symbolic markers from text (i.e., prosodic phrase boundaries, accent, and intonation boundaries), and then using these markers to generate pitch, intensity, and durational patterns for the synthesis module of the system. In this paper, a novel method for annotating the prosodic structure of Thai sentences based on dependency representation of syntax is presented. The goal of the annotation process is to predict from text the rhythm of the input sentence when spoken according to its intended meaning. The encoding of the prosodic structure is established by minimizing speech disrhythmy while maintaining the congruency with syntax. That is, each word in the sentence is assigned a prosodic feature called strength dynamic which is based on the dependency representation of syntax. The strength dynamics assigned are then used to obtain rhythmic groupings in terms of a phonological unit called foot. Finally, the foot structure is used to predict the durational pattern of the input sentence. The aforementioned process has been tested on a set of ambiguous sentences, which represents various structural ambiguities involving five types of compounds in Thai.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.203-217
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• 2000

In spoken language, the characteristics of prosodic realization are related to the meaning of utterance. The pitch pattern of an interrogative sentence which differs from that of declarative sentences can be considered in this respect.. If we consider the question-answer pair, we can find that the most important variation comes from the intended meaning of asking. In this paper, we experiment with four kinds of interrogative sentences and show that the difference in pitch patterns of interrogative sentences can be explained in relation to the focus phenomena that is, the differences of the boundary tones in interrogative sentences are due to the differences in the prosodic domain of focus. For a relevant explanation with the focus phenomena, we divided focus into the categories: emphatic focus, which plays a role in delivering the speaker's intended meaning for the sentence interpretation, and informational focus, delivers the central intended meaning of the utterance. The results can be summarized in three points. First, High boundary tone delivers the meaning of asking. Second, the realization of different boundary tones that are found in wh-question and alternative question are just phonetic variations caused by focusing. Third, the high rise boundary tone in echo questions is related to the meaning of surprise or incredulity, and this relation is a consensus of existing opinion, that is, the speaker's attitude of surprise can raise the pitch range. From these results we can distinguish between boundary type and phonetic variation, and we can also give appropriate meaning to the different boundary tones in interrogative sentences that have been regarded as merely a part of sentence type.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 2023

This study investigated the response time and patterns of categorical perception of the wh-scope of an embedded clause with the non-bridge verb, "gung-geum hada 'wonder'," in the matrix verb phrase in Gyeongsang Korean. Using the same procedure as Yun (2022), 72 responses and response times for each stimulus were collected from 24 participants over the course of three trials. The stimuli were recorded readings of 40 speakers (20 male, 20 female). Context was provided to induce a matrix scope interpretation of the embedded wh-phrase in the target sentence. We sorted the 40 stimuli according to the number of matrix scope responses each received, and charted the response times for each stimulus. Although there was considerable overlap for the different types of wh-scope interpretations, there was a clear difference in categorical perception between the matrix and embedded scopes. The 24 participants also differed in their categorical perceptions. The results suggested that response time and wh-scope interpretation were not directly related and that two main weighted factors affected wh-scope interpretation: morpho-syntactic constraints and prosodic structural integrity. The weighting of each of these factors was inversely correlated and varied among subjects.