• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.63-69
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• 2016

Twenty five English native speakers with two different L2 experienced groups and nineteen native Koreans heard both Korean word-initial nasals (/m/ and /n/) in three vowel contexts (low, mid, and high) produced by a native Korean speaker. The experiment examined the hypothesis that Korean nasals are more likely to be judged or perceived correctly by the L2-experienced English learners of Korean than the unexperienced counterparts. The result showed that L2 experienced group was more sensitive to effects of vowel height in judging the Korean nasals in which the perception of nasals before the high vowels was more subject to it. In addition, place of nasal articulation causes asymmetry relations - bilabial nasal /m/ is more likely to be perceived as plosives rather than alveolar nasal /n/. The study found that the L2 experience has a somewhat limited role in perceiving the nasals correctly in the word-initial position, especially before the high vowels, in that even the L2 experienced English subjects have difficulty in identifying the Korean nasals correctly in this environment. Nevertheless, low L2 proficiency might be accounted for the difficulty in the bilabial nasal identification observed by the L2 experienced group.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.133-140
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• 2004

Background and Objectives : Vowels and resonant including nasals and liquid are produced with vocal folds vibration have been used for voice therapy of hyperadduction patients. This study was conducted to investigate phonatory characteristics of vowels and resonant consonants through the EGG measures from Lx. Speech studio (Laryngograph Ltd, UK). Materials and Method : 7 male adults produced sustained vowel /a/, /i/, /u/, nasals /m/, /n/, /${\eta}$/and liquid /I/ and read the sentences (1nasals-liquid sentence, 1 non-nasals-liquid sentence) and tongue-tip trill and humming. Fx(Hz), Ox(%) were obtained of vowels, nasals, liquid and each of the posterior vowel /a/ of /ma/, /na/, /la/, /ha/ with same F0(around F#165Hz) and amplitude (75${\pm}$5db). And also DFx(Hz), DQx(%), CFx(%) and CAx(%) were obtained from reading two kinds of sentences. Results : Qx(%) was the highest in /u/ of vowels, and nasal/n/ of the resonant consonants and nasals-liquid sentence was higher Qx than non-nasals-liquid sentence but significant differences were not found. Qx(%) of the posterior vowel /a/ of nasal consonants/n/ was higher than in the isolated vowel/a/ and other posterior vowel of resonant consonants and fricatives /h/. Regularity or periodicity and higher Qx were observed in the nasals-liquid sentence than non-nasals-liquid sentence in graphs of QxFx & CFx produced by Quantiative analysis. In the nasalance score, /u/vowel was significant higher among the vowels and /I/ liquid was significant lower among the resonant consonants and nasals-liquid sentence is higher than non-nasals -liquid sentence. CQ(%) was not significantly correlated with nasalance(%). Conclusion : These findings might signify resonant phonation was not correlated with nasalance.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.123-148
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• 2000

This paper investigates prosodic conditions for the epenthetic /n/ in Korean. It has been claimed that an epenthetic /n/ appears across prosodic words (Han 1994, Lee 1996). However, using acoustic data as well as aerodynamic data, I argue that the epenthetic /n/ does not always surface across all prosodic words, but that its appearance is prosodically restricted. I further demonstrate that it appears only across prosodic words within an accentual phrase. This finding provides empirical support for the intonation-based model of Korean prosodic structure studies.

• MALSORI
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• no.1
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• pp.40-55
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• 1980

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.37-52
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• 2011

This study investigates patterns of the alignment of the accentual peaks in bisyllabic words of the CVNCV, CVNV, and CVNNV structures in North Kyungsang Korean. Based on the tonal alignment, patterns of the F0 pitch excursion are discussed relative to one another. Issues are addressed concerning how the tonal targets are aligned, and how the tonal specifications of nasals in postvocalic, intervocalic, and prevocalic environments are supplied in the LH, HL, and HH classes. Tonal specification of nasals in various environments is accounted for by extension of the L target, displacement of the pitch peak, and interpolation between two tonal targets, depending on the tonal class. The results in this study provide preliminary evidence that the categorical alignment of the tonal targets is implemented by simply checking the presence or absence of a nasal before or after the nucleus vowel on the segmental string, without reference to the constituency of the nasal in the syllable structure. However, the prosodic structure has a key role to play in explaining speaker-dependent variations in the tonal alignment. Sensitivity to tautosyllabicity has an effect on the shape of the F0 contour, and disparity in the patterns of the pitch excursion is represented as a function of syllable structure correlated with segmental composition of the nasal.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.3-8
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• 2015

Denasalization that nasals are replaced by stops is an unusual error pattern related to manner of articulation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of denasalization and to scrutinize the nasal production according to phonological context for typically developing children and children with speech sound disorders(SSD). 220 typically developing children and 48 SSD children from 2~6 years of age were tested with a formal word test, and those who demonstrate denasalization were selected. In addition, the nasal production of SSD children with denasalization were analyzed for the correctness and the error types using the formal word test and spontaneous conversation. The results were as follows: (1) Denasalization was shown in below 10% of 2-3 years of age with typically developing children and in above 20% of 2-5 years of age with SSD. (2) The SSD children who demonstrate denasalization were categorized into 4 types according to the error context of nasals; nasal errors with all word positions, nasal errors with word-final and word-medial positions, nasal errors with word-medial position preceding vowels, and nasal errors with word-medial position preceding obstruents. These results indicate that denasalization is a clinically important error pattern, and word-medial position preceding obstruents is an essential context for denasalization in terms of Korean phonotactics.

• MALSORI
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• no.60
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• pp.67-84
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to find some acoustic parameters on frequency domain to distinguish the Korean nasals, $/m,\;n,\;{\eta}/$ from each other. The new parameters are devised on the basis of LTAS (Long Term Average Spectrum). The maximum peak amplitude and the relevant formant frequency are measured in low and high frequency range, respectively. The frequency of spectral valley and its energy level are also obtained in the specific frequency range of the spectrum. Spectral slope, total energy value in specific frequency range, statistical distribution of spectral energy like centroid, skewness, and kurtosis are suggested as new parameters as well. The parameters that show statistically significant differences across nasals are summerized as follows. 1) in syllable initial positions: the total energy value from 1,500 to 2,200 Hz(zeroENG); 2) in syllable final positions: the peak amplitude of the first formant(peak1_a), the formant frequency with maximum peak amplitude from 4,000 to 8,000 Hz(peak2_f), the maximum peak amplitude of the formant frequency from 4,000 to 8,000 Hz(peak2_a), and the total energy value from 1,500 to 2,200 Hz(zeroENG).

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.84-88
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• 1996

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.29B no.11
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• pp.22-30
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• 1992

Using Multi-Dimentional Scaling(MDS) method, this paper analyzes the differences of acoustic properties of Korean phonemes projected as distances on a plan space. The phonemes were extracted from mono-syllables frequently occurring in daily conversation. From the distances between vowels we found that the distances between vowels /∂/ and /w/, /o/ and /u/, and vowels /$\varepsilon$/ and /e/ were relatively too short separate automatically. From the analysis of consonants. we found short distances between 1) phonemes in each phoneme group, 2) nasals and liquid /r/ of work initial, 3) nasal /n,m/ and liquid /l/ of word finals. But nasals, liquids and plosives of word initials had enough distances to be separated from those of word finals in automatic recogniation.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.20
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• pp.5-27
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• 2010

This paper studies the relation between canonical/variegated babble (CB/VB) and early speech in an infant acquiring Mandarin Chinese from 9 to 17 months. The infant was audio-and video-taped in her home almost every week. The data analyzed here come from 1,621 utterances extracted from 23 sessions ranging from 30 minutes to one hour, from age 00:09;07 to 01:05;27. The data was digitized, and segments from 23 sessions were transcribed in narrow IPA and coded for analysis. Babble was coded from age 00:09;07 to 01:00;00, and words were coded from 01:00;00 to 01:05;27, proto-words appeared at 11 months, and some babble was still present after 01:10;00. 3821 segments were counted in CB/VB utterances, plus the segments found in 899 word tokens. The data transcription was completed and checked by the author and was rechecked by two other researchers who majored in Chinese phonetics in order to ensure the reliability, we reached an agreement of 95.65%. Mandarin Chinese is phonetically very rich in consonants, especially affricates: it has aspirated and unaspirated stops in labial, alveolar, and velar places of articulation; affricates and fricatives in alveolar, retroflex, and palatal places; /f/; labial, alveolar, and velar nasals; a lateral;[h]; and labiovelar and palatal glides. In the child's pre-speech phonetic repertoire, 7 different consonants and 10 vowels were transcribed at 00:09;07. By 00:10;16, the number of phones was more than doubled (17 consonants, 25 vowels), but the rate of increase slowed after 11 months of age. The phones from babbling remained active throughout the child's early and subsequent speech. The rank order of the occurrence of the major class types for both CB and early speech was: stops, approximants, nasals, affricates, fricatives and lateral. As expected, unaspirated stops outnumbered aspirated stops, and front stops and nasals were more frequent than back sounds in both types of utterances. The fact that affricates outnumbered fricatives in the child's late babble indicates the pre-speech influence of the ambient language. The analysis of the data also showed that: 1) the phonetic characteristics of CB/VB and early meaningful speech are extremely similar. The similarities of CB/VB and speech prove that the two are deeply related; 2) The infant has demonstrated similar preferences for certain types of sounds in the two stages; 3) The infant's babbling was patterned at segmental level, and this regularity was similarly evident in the early speech of children. The three types being coronal plus front vowel; labial plus central and dorsal plus back vowel exhibited much overlap in the phonetic forms of CB/ VB and early speech. So the child's CB/ VB at this stage already shared the basic architecture, composition and representation of early speech. The evidence of similarity between CB/VB and early speech leaves no doubt that phones present in CB/VB are indeed precursors to early speech.