• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.10B no.4
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• pp.381-388
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• 2003

This paper presents a method of giving weights to garbage class clustering and Filler model to improve performance of keyword spotting system and a time-saving method of dialogue speech processing system for keyword spotting by calculating keyword transition probability through speech analysis of task domain users. The point of the method is grouping phonemes with phonetic similarities, which is effective in sensing similar phoneme groups rather than individual phonemes, and the paper aims to suggest five groups of phonemes obtained from the analysis of speech sentences in use in Korean morphology and in stock-trading speech processing system. Besides, task-subject Filler model weights are added to the phoneme groups, and keyword transition probability included in consecutive speech sentences is calculated and applied to the system in order to save time for system processing. To evaluate performance of the suggested system, corpus of 4,970 sentences was built to be used in task domains and a test was conducted with subjects of five people in their twenties and thirties. As a result, FOM with the weights on proposed five phoneme groups accounts for 85%, which has better performance than seven phoneme groups of Yapanel [1] with 88.5% and a little bit poorer performance than LVCSR with 89.8%. Even in calculation time, FOM reaches 0.70 seconds than 0.72 of seven phoneme groups. Lastly, it is also confirmed in a time-saving test that time is saved by 0.04 to 0.07 seconds when keyword transition probability is applied.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.656-664
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• 2002

We present a statistical analysis of Korean phonological variations using a Grapheme-to-Phoneme (GPT) system. The GTP system used for experiments generates pronunciation variants by applying rules modeling obligatory and optional phonemic changes and allophonic changes. These rules are derived form morphophonological analysis and government standard pronunciation rules. The GTP system is optimized for continuous speech recognition by generating phonetic transcriptions for training and constructing a pronunciation dictionary for recognition. In this paper, we describe Korean phonological variations by analyzing the statistics of phonemic change rule applications for the 60,000 sentences in the Samsung PBS Speech DB. Our results show that the most frequently happening obligatory phonemic variations are in the order of liaison, tensification, aspirationalization, and nasalization of obstruent, and that the most frequently happening optional phonemic variations are in the order of initial consonant h-deletion, insertion of final consonant with the same place of articulation as the next consonants, and deletion of final consonant with the same place of articulation as the next consonant's, These statistics can be used for improving the performance of speech recognition systems.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.98-109
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• 2010

1. Objectives: This study is to investigate the association of Sasang Constitution and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD). 2. Methods: One thousand five hundred forty five persons, more than 40 years old, participated in the community based cohort in Wonju City and Pyeongchang City of South Korea from October 29th in 2007 to February 26th in 2008. The diagnosis of COPD was confirmed by spirometry and based on the diagnostic criteria developed by GOLD (Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease) standard. Relating items like height, weight, BMI(Body Mass Index), martial status, income, drinking, smoking and education were checked using questionnaires and Sasang Constitution was diagnosed by a specialist using PSSC(Phonetic System for Sasang Constitution), facial photos and check-up lists. 3. Results: There were 88 persons(5.7%) who had mild COPD. Old age(more than 60's) and male were significant risk factors of COPD. But smoking, drinking and Sasang Constitution were not risk factors of COPD. But there were many Soeumin who had mild COPD in terms of Sasang Constitution irrespective of sex. 4. Conclusions: Low BMI(<23kg/m2) and low income also were significant risk factors. And Sasang Constitution might be the variable to manage COPD patients, but more researches are needed.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.90-97
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• 2007

1. Objectives and Methods This study was done to investigate the relationships of Sound parameters between Liver Heat Symptom and Esophagus Symptom of Taeumin using PSSC(Phonetic System of Sasang Constitution) in a sentence. Experimental Participants were 20 Korean adult males including, each 10 Liver Heat Symptom and Esophagus Symptom of Taeumin. 2. Results In Pitch segment, APQ segment and Shimmer segment, there were no significant differences between Liver Heat Symptom and Esophagus Symptom of Taeumin. In Octave segment, there were significant differences in Octave 1, Octave 3, Octave 4, Octave 6 of Liver Heat Symptom of Taeumin were significantly high compared with Esophagus Symptom of Taeumin. In Energy segment, FreQ Domain Total Sum / cnt(0), 0k-2k Total Sum,0k-2k sum dev., 2k-4k Total Sum, 2k-4k sum dev., A# Tot E, B__TOT_E, C__TOT_E, C# Tot E, D__TOT_E, A sum dev., A# sum dev., B sum dev., C sum dev., C# sum dev., Dsum dev., D# sum dev., E sum dev., F sum dev., F# sum dev., G sum dev., G# sum dev. of Liver Heat Symptom of Taeumin were significantly high compared with Esophagus Symptom of Taeumin. In Voice Recording time segment, Total Voice Recording Time, Voice Recording Time, Divide By Time3, Divide By Energy10, Total Unit, Max Unit Position, U_0 TO 3 of Liver Heat Symptom of Taeumin were significantly high compared with Esophagus Symptom of Taeumin. 3. Conclusion From above result, there is the postbility of efficiency quide constitutional sx. of Taeumin by Voice characteristics. More Soeumin, Soyangin and Taeyangin Symptoms are needed to determine Sasang Constitution using PSSC and to make PSSC effective.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.162-173
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• 1998

Writing a CAI program containing Chinese characters requires a common Chinese character code to share information for educational purposes. A Chinese character code setting needs to allow a mixed use of both vowel and stroke order, to represent Chinese characters in simplified Chinese as well as in Japanese version, and to have a conversion process for data exchange among different sets of Chinese codes. Waste in code area is expected when vowel order is used because heteronyms are recognized as different. However, using stroke order facilitates in data recovery preventing duplicate code generation, though it does not comply with the phonetic rule. We claim that the first and second level Chinese code area needs to be expanded as much as academic and industrial circles have demanded. Also, we assert that Unicode can be a temporary measure for an educational code system due to its interoperability, expandability, and expressivity of character sets.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.44-57
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• 2001

In order to synthesize grammatically correct Korean voices, we have to refer to the 'Standard Pronunciation Rules(SPR)' stated in the 'Standard Grammar of Korean Language.' Therefore, the rules that is used for a Korean-voice-synthesis system to find Korean voices corresponding to a given Korean sentence must completely reflect the SPR and must be sound. However, in the field of computer science they have just used the SPR without proving the completeness and soundness of their rules. In this paper, we construct a Petri net model for each rule of SPR, integrate all the Petri net models to build one big Petri net completely representing SPR, and analyse the Petri net to prove the consistency of it. Then, we transfer the Petri net model into a look-up table for Korean voice. Using this table, we can avoid the drawbacks of existing approaches such as going through several stages or repetitively applying a converting process.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.71-73
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• 2007

The Purpose of the study is to give Korean-English leaners better knowledge on vowel sounds in their learning English. The traditional description of the cardinal vowel system developed by Daniel Johns in 1917 is not enough to provide English learners with clear ideas in producing native like vowel sounds. For the reason, three Korean-native subjects, one male, one female and one child are chosen to produce 7 cardinal vowels and compare them with native English and American speaker's vowel sounds. The difference of produced vowels sounds is quantified and visualized by employing Sona-match program. The results have been fairly remarkable. Firstly, Korean-English learner's vowel sounds are articulated differently from their intention of vowel production. Secondly, the tongue positions of Koreans are placed slightly more down and forward to the lips than those of English and Americans. However, the front vowel /i/ sound is quite close to English and Americans. Lastly the mid-vowel /${\partial}$/ sound is not produced in any articulations of Korean-native speakers. It is thought that the mid vowel, /${\partial}$/ is a type of a weak sound regarded as 'schwa' which needs a great deal of exposure to the language to acquire a physical skill of articulation.

• 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.37-42
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• 1996

This study aims to see some prosodic features of English spoken by Japanese learners of English. It focuses on speech rates, pauses, and intonation when the learners read an English passage. Three Japanese learners of English, who are all male university students, were asked to read the speech material, an English passage of 110 word length, at their normal reading speed. Then a native speaker of English, a male American English teacher. was asked to read the same passage. The Japanese speakers were also asked to read a Japanese passage of 286 letters (Japanese Kana) to compare the reading of English with that of japanese. Their speech was analyzed on a computerized system (KAY Computerized Speech Lab). Wave forms, spectrograms, and F0 contours were shown on the screen to measure the duration of pauses, phrases and sentences and to observe intonation contours. One finding of the experiment was that the movement of the low speakers' speech rates showed a similar tendency in their reading of the English passage. Reading of the Japanese passage by the three learners also had a similar tendency in the movement of speech rates. Another finding was that the frequency of pauses in the learners speech was greater than that in the speech of the native speaker, but that the ration of the total pause length to the whole utterance length was about tile same in both the learners' and the native speaker's speech. A similar tendency was observed about the learners' reading of the Japanese passage except that they used shorter pauses in the mid-sentence position. As to intonation contours, we found that the learners used a narrower pitch range than the native speaker in their reading of the English passage while they used a wider pitch range as they read the Japanese passage. It was found that the learners tended to use falling intonation before pauses whereas the native speaker used different intonation patterns. These findings are applicable to the teaching of English pronunciation at the passage level in the sense that they can show the learners. Japanese here, what their problems are and how they could be solved.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.25-32
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• 2017

Besides their effect on the f0 contour of the following vowel, Korean stops are undergoing a sound change in which a partial or complete consonantal merger on voice onset time (VOT) is taking place between aspirated and lax stops. Many previous studies on sound change have mainly focused on group-normative effects, that is, effects that are representative of the population as a whole. Few systematic quantitative studies of change in adult individuals have been carried out. The current study examines whether the sound change holds for individual speakers. It focuses on inter-speaker and intra-speaker variability on sound change in contemporary Korean. Speech data were collected for thirteen Seoul Korean speakers studying abroad in America. In order to minimize the possible effects of speech production, socio-phonetic factors such as age, gender, dialect, speech rate, and L2 exposure period were controlled when recruiting participants. The results showed that, for nine out of thirteen speakers, the consonantal merger is taking place between the aspirated and lax stop in terms of VOT. There were also intra-speaker variations on the merger in three aspects: First, is the consonantal (VOT) merger between the two stops is in progress or not? Second, are VOTs for aspirated stops getting shorter or not (i.e., the aspirated-shortening process)? Third, are VOTs for lax stops getting longer or not (i.e., the lax-lengthening process)? The results of remarkable inter-speaker and intra-speaker variability indicate a synchronous speech sound change of the stop system in contemporary Korean. Some speakers are early adopters or active propagators of sound change whereas others are not. Further study is necessary to see whether the inter-speaker differences exceed intra-speaker differences in sound change.