• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2004

The informative or important entities in utterances are focused and the focused items are usually accompanied by changes in phonetic manifestation. Phonetic realizations triggered by focus include changes of tonal contours as well as segmental strengthening. Focus in Korean is characterized by new phrase initiation, dephrasing, and initial tone contour with an enlarged pitch range in addition to segmentally lengthened initial segment. Focusing on the prosodic cues which play an important role in delivering the speakers' intention, this study aims to find out what intonational characteristics of Korean focus are realized by English learners of Korean. The English learners are divided into two groups according to their fluency in Korean, and the differences in focus realization between each group are discussed. Furthermore, the phonological and phonetic realizations of focus by English learners of Korean are compared to those by Korean native speakers. The results of this study yields two suggestions for Korean intonation education of L2 learners. First, the comparison between the two speaker groups can give better understanding in how and why the Korean intonation of English speakers is different from that of Koreans. Second, each phonological and phonetic characteristic of focus realization can weigh differently and its realization provides a criterion for evaluation of L2 Korean proficiency.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.69-87
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• 2002

This paper investigates how focus contributes to the phonological and phonetic realization of Japanese intonation. Pierrehumbert & Beckman (1988) pointed out that textual prominence results in the H-tone peak raising on the focused item and IP (Intonational Phrase) initiation before the focused item. Similarly Kori (1989) suggested that the F0 peaks on the words after the focused item tend to be suppressed. Although they give a general description of the characteristics of focus phenomena in Japanese intonation, they fail to explain the F0 peak interaction between H phrasal tone and lexically specified pitch accent in more-than-3-mora words whose accent locations varies from early to late. In this paper, we perform the experiment to investigate the following three points. First, we would like to look at the systematic intonational differences between focused and neutral APs; specifically, focused APs, either accented or unaccented, are compared with the neutral counterparts in terms of F0 pattern. Second, we investigate F0 patterns of a focused AP with more than 3 morae, as the accent of the word varies from early to late. Since an AP with a late accent has a H- on the second mora as well as H*+L on its accent mora, it is expected that these peaks will show systematic F0 pattern when it is focused. Our third concern is F0 patterns of a post focus AP with more than 3 morae, that is, whether a post-focus word is dephrased or just downstepped as the word accent location varies from early to late. This paper is significant in that it tries to clarify the F0 peak interaction between H-and lexical pitch accent H*+L in a variety of focus contexts in Japanese intonation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.71-81
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• 2011

This paper investigated how prosodic position and word type affect the phonetic structure of Korean coronal stops. Initial segments of prosodic domains were known to be more strongly articulated and longer relative to prosodic domain-medial segments. However, there are few studies examining whether the properties of prosodic domain-initial segments are affected by the information content of words (real vs. nonsense words). In addition, since the scope of domain-initial effect was known to be local to the initial consonant and the effects on the following vowel have been found to be limited, it is thus worth examining whether the prosodic domain-initial effect extends into the vowel after the initial consonant in a systematic way across different prosodic domains. The acoustic properties of Korean coronal stops (lenis /t/, aspirated /$t^h$/, and tense /t'/) were compared across Intonational Phrase, Phonological Phrase and Word-initial positions both in real and nonsense words. The durational intervals such as VOT and CV duration were cumulatively lengthened for /t/ and /$t^h$/ in the higher prosodic domain-initial positions. However, tense stop /t'/ did not show any variation as a function of prosodic position and word type. The domain-initial lenis stop showed significantly longer duration in nonsense words than in real words. But the prosodic domain-initial effect was not found in the properties of F0 and [H1-H2] of the vowel after initial stops. The present study provided evidence that speakers tend to enhance speech clarity when there is less contextual information as in prosodic domain-initial position and in nonsense words.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.21-30
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• 2008

The current study investigated distributional properties of the Korean Accentual Phrase and their implication to word segmentation. The properties examined were the frequency of various AP tonal patterns, the types of tonal patterns that are imposed upon content words, and the average number and temporal location of content words within the AP. A total of 414 sentences from the Read speech corpus and the Radio corpus were used for the data analysis. The results showed that the 84% of the APs contained one content word, and that almost 90% of the content words are located in AP-initial position. When the AP-initial onset was not an aspirated or tense consonant, the most common AP patterns were LH, LHH, and LHLH (78%), and 88% of the multisyllabic content words start with a rising tone in AP-initial position. When the AP-initial onset was an aspirated or tense consonant, the most common AP patterns were HH, HHLH, and HHL (72%), and 74% of the multisyllabic content words start with a level H tone in AP-initial position. The data further showed that 84.1% of APs end with the final H tone. The findings provide valuable information about the prosodic pattern and structure of Korean APs, and account for the results of a previous study which showed that Korean listeners are sensitive to AP-initial rising and AP-final high tones (Kim, 2007). This is in line with other cross-linguistic research which has revealed the correlation between prosodic probability and speech processing strategy.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2009

An emphasis on teaching suprasegmental features of English, specifically English rhythm, is essential in order to improve the 'intelligibility' of the pronunciation of Korean EFL learners among interlocutors who use English as a Lingua Franca(ELF). By redefining the ELF suggested by Jenkins (2000, 2002), this paper argues that Lingua Franca Core (LFC) must include suprasegmental features such as 'stress-based rhythm' and word stress. However, because 'isochrony' is difficult to measure in a foot, the rhythm unit must be expanded to an intonational phrase which has prominence in it and the rhythm of the unit can be measured by calculating the duration of each segment in context The rhythmic pattern of Korean learners of English and that of native speakers or other non-native English speakers can then be calculated and compared by using correlation coefficients of the segmental duration. In terms of sociolinguistic factors, improving the 'comprehensibility' and 'accentedness' of Korean EFL learners' pronunciation is also important in international communication, which calls for more emphasis on suprasegmental features.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.91-94
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• 2007

This paper aims to analyze the pronunciation of Korean Point-of-Interest (POI) data, which consist of 224 sound files, from the phonological point of view, adapting the notion of prosodic word within the framework of Intonational Phonology. Each POI word is broken down into prosodic words, which are defined as the minimal sequence of segments which can be produced as one Accentual Phrase (AP). Then the pronunciation of the POI word considering its prosodic words are analyzed. The results show that: in most cases, a prosodic word is realized as one AP; that, in some cases, two prosodic words are pronounced as one AP: and that no cases are found where 3 prosodic words are realized as one AP.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.153-166
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• 2005

This paper attempts to examine the accent implementation and perception of noun phrases and compound nouns in English sentences, arguing that primary stress of noun phrase and compound noun is realized in relative prominence in intonation. The production test examines how the stress patterns of the noun phrases and compound nouns are realized in intonation of the English native speakers' utterances. The perception test investigates English and Korean listeners' comprehension of the intonation of the noun phrases and compound nouns. And the results of this experimental study show that speakers and listeners produce and perceive the primary stress as a relatively prominent accent even if in contrast of English listeners, Korean learners have difficulty in using the cue of pitch accent location and figuring out compound nouns and noun phrases.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.187-202
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• 2000

The negative sentence may have an ambiguity depending on which constituent of the sentence is negated. In case of sentence final adverbials, whether they are included in the scope of negation generates the semantic ambiguity. Since sentences with ambiguous meanings have the same word order, the differences of the meanings in different contexts should be manifested with intonational cues. This article represents how intonation contributes to the disambiguation in negative sentences with ambiguity and which phonological/phonetic cues are specifically used in the course of the disambiguation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.3-14
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• 2011

It has been posited that in English, native listeners use the Metrical Segmentation Strategy (MSS) for the segmentation of continuous speech. Strong syllables tend to be perceived as potential word onsets for English native speakers, which is due to the high proportion of strong syllables word-initially in the English vocabulary. This study investigates whether Koreans employ the same strategy when segmenting speech input in English. Word-spotting experiments were conducted using vowel-initial and consonant-initial bisyllabic targets embedded in nonsense trisyllables in Experiment 1 and 2, respectively. The effect of strong syllable was significant in the RT (reaction times) analysis but not in the error analysis. In both experiments, Korean listeners detected words more slowly when the word-initial syllable is strong (stressed) than when it is weak (unstressed). However, the error analysis showed that there was no effect of initial stress in Experiment 1 and in the item (F2) analysis in Experiment 2. Only the subject (F1) analysis in Experiment 2 showed that the participants made more errors when the word starts with a strong syllable. These findings suggest that Koran listeners do not use the Metrical Segmentation Strategy for segmenting English speech. They do not treat strong syllables as word beginnings, but rather have difficulties recognizing words when the word starts with a strong syllable. These results are discussed in terms of intonational properties of Korean prosodic phrases which are found to serve as lexical segmentation cues in the Korean language.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.06c
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• pp.383-386
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• 1998

한국어의 운율구조는 발화문장(utterance), 억양구(intonational phrase), 악센트구(accentual phrase), 음운적 어절(phonological word), 음절(syllable) 순의 계층적 구조를 가지고 있다. 본 연구에서는 운율구조의 각 층에서 성조 이벤트가 얹혀지는 음절이나 또는 각 층의 운율단위말의 음절의 음향적 길이를 측정함으로써 첫째, 운율단위말의 음절의 음향적 길이 또한 계층적 순위를 보이는지 둘째, 성조 이벤트(tonal event)와 음향적 길이 사이에 높은 상관관계를 보이는지 보고자 한다. 즉, 두 가지 측면에서 길이비교가 수행되었는데 하나는 언어 보편적 현상으로 알려진 구말 장음화 현상으로써 각 층 운율적 단위의 마지막 음절의 모음 길이 비교이며 다른 하나는 억양구초 고성조가 실현되는 음절의 모음과 어절 내 모음, 그리고 고성조가 실현되는 억양구말 음절의 모음간의 길이 비교이다. 남녀 각각 200문장의 각 분절음과 운율분석을 한 후 길이에 대한 일원분산분석 실시 결과 억양구말은 악센트구말 보다 길었으나 악센트구말은 어절말과 차이를 보이지 않거나 남자 화자의 경우 오히려 짧게 나타났다. 그리고 남자화자의 경우 악센트구초 고성자가 얹혀지는 음절의 길이는 어절 내 어절말 음절을 제외한 그 외 음절과 화자에 따라 큰 차이를 보이지 않거나 그보다 조금 짧게 실현되는 것으로 나타났다. 위의 결과는 첫째, 단위말 음절 모음의 장음화는 운율적 구조의 층위에 일대일 대응을 보이지 않는 것으로 해석되며 둘째, 성조 이벤트와 그것이 실현되는 분절음의 음향적 길이와는 큰 상관관계를 보이지 않는 것으로 해석될 수 있겠다. 그러나 이러한 일반화에 대한 충분한 근거 제공을 위해서는 해당음절의 모음 길이 뿐만 아니라 초성자음의 길이간의 비교와 음절자체의 길이 비교 또한 필요한 것이며 모음길이에 대한 선행자음의 분절음적 영향 고려가 수반되어야 할 것으로 보인다. 다음 내용을 정리해 보고자 한다.리해 보고자 한다.rc$ 구입할 때 중점적으로 살펴보는 사항은 신선도와 순수재래종 여부, 위생상태였다. 한편 소비자가 언제나 구입할 수 없다는 의견이 85.2%나 되어 원활한 공급과 시장조성이 아직 정착되지 않고 있었다. $\bigcirc$ 현재 유통되고 있는 재래종닭은 소비자 대부분이 잡종으로 인식하고 있었으며, 재래종과 일반육계와의 구별은 깃털색, 피부색, 정강이색등 외관상으로 구별하고 있었다. 체중에 대한 반응은 너무 작다는 의견이었고, 식품으로의 인식도는 비교적 고급식품으로 인식하고 있다. $\bigcirc$ 재래종닭고기의 브랜드화에 대한 견해는 젊고 소득이 높은 계층에서 브랜드화의 필요성을 강조하고 있다. $\bigcirc$ 재래종달걀의 소비형태는 대부분의 소비자가 좋아하였으나 아직 먹어보지 못한 응답자가 많았다. 재래종달걀의 맛에 대해서는 고소하고 독특하여 차별성을 느끼고 있었다. $\bigcirc$ 재래종달걀의 구입장소는 계란판매점(축협.농협), 슈퍼, 백화점, 재래닭 사육 농장등 다양하였으며 포장단위는 10개를 가장 선호하였고, 포장재료는 종이, 플라스틱, 짚의 순으로 좋아하였다. $\bigcirc$ 달걀의 가격은 200원정도를 적정하다고 하였으며, 크기는 (평균 52g)는 가장 적당하다고 인식하고 있으며, 난각색은 대부분의 응답자가 갈색을 선호하였다. $\bigcirc$ 재래종달걀의 구입시 애로사항은 믿을수 없고, 구입장소를 몰라서, 값이 싸다 등이었고, 앞으로 신뢰할 수 있고 위생적인 생산 및 유통체계가 확립될 경우 더 많이 소비하겠다는 의견이었다. $\bigcirc$ 재래닭 판매업소(식당)의 판매형태는 66.7%인 대부분의 업소가 잡종과 개량종 유색닭을 판매하고 있었으며, 1개 업소에서 1일 판