• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.71-87
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• 2004

Korean has a pair of voiceless fricatives, whose laryngeal manifestation comes in parallel to stops and affricates with a three-way lexical contrast. Prior phonetic studies by Kagaya (1974), Iverson (1983), and Kang (1999, 2000) point out /s/ is associated with multiple characteristics of the larynx shared with not only the lax but also the aspirated series, whereas /s' / carries a laryngeal distinction typical of the tense consonants. The complex dual nature of /s/ is again supported by a psycholinguistic study by Kang (2004), as /s/ was found to interact with /$c^h$/ (17% of the time) as well as /c/ (57%) in speech errors. In addition, a recent work by Cho and Lee (2003) notes an interesting chain shift case in the acquisition of the fricatives. Although they observed a significant phonological pattern between child English and Korean, Cho and Lee's description of acquiring fricatives is far from being precise from the perspective of phonetics. From a longitudinal study of recorded tapes by two children at 1;7-3;8 and 1;7-2;1 respectively, I found that /s' / was usually substituted into tense noncontinuants in young children's early production as predicted, whereas /s/ having both lax and aspirated-like glottal properties revealed a complicated pattern of substitutions into lax, tense, and aspirated noncontinuants with a varying degree of preference relative to the subjects. The current acquisition study supports the previous claims concerning fricatives in other languages, showing that their acquisition comes after stops. Besides, it also notes that Korean fricatives are subject to a series of phonological processes called stopping, affricating, tensifying and palatalizing during the transitional period of phonological development by young children. Moreover, between the two voiceless types, /s/ was acquired earlier than /s'/ as the unmarked segment.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.295-304
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• 2015

We assessed reading-related skills in children with reading comprehension difficulties ("Poor comprehenders"), word decoding difficulties ("Poor decoders") and normal readers, matched for age and nonverbal IQ. The reading-related skill tests used in our study are phonological processing, visual processing test, and receptive vocabulary test. The authors argue that children who had difficulty in reading comprehension had lower scores only on the phonological short-term memory test compared with normal readers, although their performance on receptive vocabulary and visual processing tests are comparable to normal readers. The results of our study revealed that poor decoders had lower scores on the phonological processing, visual processing, and receptive vocabulary tests.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the phonological information or the orthographic information plays a major role in visual word recognition. To do so, we used a non-word lexical decision task(LDT) in Experiment 1 and masked priming tasks in Experiement 2 and 3. The results of Experiment 1 showed that reaction times and the error rates were affected by the orthographic characteristics of the non-word stimuli such that orthographically similar non-words condition showed prolonged reaction times and higher error rates than control condition. In Experiment 2 and Experiment 3, the participants performed masked priming lexical decision tasks in two SOA conditions(60ms, 150ms). The results of the both experiments showed that the orthographically identical first syllable priming facilitated lexical decision of the target words while both of the pseudo-homophone priming and the phonologically identical first syllable priming did not. The dual route hypothesis(Coltheart et al, 2001), assuming that orthographic information rather than phonological information is the major source for the visual word recognition processes, fits well with the results of the current study.

• 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.

• ALGAE
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.191-199
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• 2004

Morphological and phonological characteristics of brown alga Spatoglossum crassum Tanaka new to Korea were described based on the field and the indoor cultured plants. The taxonomic characteristics of the plants were agreed to those from the type locality-submerged reproductive organs in cortex, anatomical features, and absence of phaeophycean hairs on the surface. But they have rudimentary midrib on lower portion of thallus. We can observe the young plants on November, adult ones in June, and senile ones in August. This species has an annual life-cycle in the field, starting with germ lings in early November. The differentiation of thallus is quite different from other species of genera in tribe Zonarieae, e.g. Zonaria and Homoeostrichus. Three different tissues, meristoderm, cortex and medulla are discerned. The outmost cortical one celled layer as a meristoderm produce cortex by unequal periclinal division. In the apical cell division, the primary inner cells are developed into 3-4 cell layered medulla of thallus. The distribution of this species extends from Korea to Shizuoka Peninsula (34°40'N) Japan, which is the type locality of this species.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.59-64
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• 2017

There are three sorts of voices of female vocalists: soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto according to the transliteration. Among them, the soprano has the highest vocal range. Since the voice is generated through the human vocal tract based on the voice generation model, it is greatly influenced by the vocal tract. The structure of vocal organs differs from person to person, and the formants characteristic of vocalization differ accordingly. The formant characteristic refers to a characteristic in which a specific frequency band appears distinctly due to resonance occurring in each vocal tract in the vocal process. Formant characteristics include personality that occurs in the throat, jaw, lips, and teeth, as well as phonological properties of phonemes. The first formant is the throat, the second formant is the jaw, the third formant and the fourth formant are caused by the resonance phenomenon in the lips and the teeth. Among them, pronunciation is influenced not only by phonological information but also by jaws, lips and teeth. When the mouth is small or the jaw is stiff when pronouncing, pronunciation becomes unclear. Therefore, the higher the accuracy of the pronunciation characteristics, the more clearly the formant characteristics appear in the grammar spectrum. However, many soprano singers can not open their mouths because their jaws, lips, teeth, and facial muscles are rigid to maintain high tones when singing, which makes the pronunciation unclear and thus the formant characteristics become unclear. In this paper, in order to confirm the accuracy of the pronunciation characteristics of soprano singers, the experimental group was selected as the soprano singers A, B, C, D, E of Korea and analyzed the grammar spectrum and conducted the MOS test for pronunciation recognition. As a result, soprano singer B showed a clear recognition from F1 to F5 and MOS test result showed the highest recognition rate with 4.6 points. Soprano singers A, C, and D appear from F1 to F3, but it was difficult to find formants above 2kHz. Finally, the soprano singer E had difficulty in finding the formant as a whole, and MOS test showed the lowest recognition rate at 2.1 points. Therefore, we confirmed that the soprano singer B, which exhibits the most distinct formant characteristics in the grammar spectrum, has the best pronunciation accuracy.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.29-41
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• 2006

This study investigates the degree to which various prosodic cues at the boundaries of prosodic phrases in Korean contribute to word segmentation. Since most phonological words in Korean are produced as one Accentual Phrase (AP), it was hypothesized that the detection of acoustic cues at AP boundaries would facilitate word segmentation. The prosodic characteristics of Korean APs include initial strengthening at the beginning of the phrase and pitch rise and final lengthening at the end. A perception experiment utilizing an artificial language learning paradigm revealed that cues conforming to the aforementioned prosodic characteristics of Korean facilitated listeners' word segmentation. Results also indicated that duration and amplitude cues were more helpful in segmentation than pitch. Nevertheless, results did show that a pitch cue that did not conform to the Korean AP interfered with segmentation.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.114-118
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• 2007

The current study investigates the degree to which various prosodic cues at the boundaries of a prosodic phrase in Korean (Accentual Phrase) contributed to word segmentation. Since most phonological words in Korean are produced as one AP, it was hypothesized that the detection of acoustic cues at AP boundaries would facilitate word segmentation. The prosodic characteristics of Korean APs include initial strengthening at the beginning of the phrase and pitch rise and final lengthening at the end. A perception experiment revealed that the cues that conform to the above-mentioned prosodic characteristics of Korean facilitated listeners' word segmentation. Results also showed that duration and amplitude cues were more helpful in segmentation than pitch. Further, the results showed that a pitch cue that did not conform to the Korean AP interfered with segmentation.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.851-861
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• 1998

Korean language is to be characterized by the rich vocal sound variation. In order to increase the probability of vocal sound recognition and to provide a natural vocal sound synthesis, a systematic and thorough research into the characteristics of Korean language including its vocal sound changing rules is required. This paper addresses an effective way of vocal sound recognition and synthesis by providing the design and implementation of the Korean vocal sound variation rule. The regulation we followed for the design of the vocal sound variation rule is the Phonetic Standard(Section 30. Chapter 7) of the Korean Orthographic Standards. We have first factor out rules for each regulations, then grouped them into 27 groups for eaeh final-consonant. The Phonological Change Processing System suggested in the paper provides a fast processing ability for vocal sound variation by a single application of the rule. The contents of the process for information augmented to words or the stem of innected words are included in the rules. We believe that the Phonological Change Processing System will facilitate the vocal sound recognition and synthesis by the sentence. Also, this system may be referred as an example for similar research areas.

• MALSORI
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• no.21_24
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• pp.43-89
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• 1992

In this thesis, the prominent aspect of word accent in standard Korean is studied by auditory test and acoustic analysis experiment. The definition of 'accent' is, following Hoyoung Lee's discussion(1990), to be described as 'the means whereby a focused part of an utterance is made to stand out in order to concentrate the hearer's attention on it.' That is to say, the ten of 'accent' may be described in terms of phonological phenomenon and the accented syllable can be phonetically prominent as the result of those phonological process. Prosodic features may have different characteristics in different languages whether they contain linguistically important functions or not. Thus the characteristics of word accent in standard Korean will be determined as the content and trait of prosodic features. Following this viewpoint, present study looked over prosodic features which may effect the characteristics of word accent in standard Korean, through systematic experimental procedure. And the result of this experiment has been verified by statistical method, the T-test, for the purpose of identifying the relatedness among prosodic features(parameters). This thesis, therefore, aimed to investigate the intrinsic acoustic and physical qualities of the word accent in standard Korean. Nonsense words composed by 'mal' and 'ma' which can be divided into 'heavy syllable' and 'light syllable' quoted from Hyman(1975) have been classified into 28 types with respect to syllable numbers(2 syl., 3 sy1., 4 syl.) and these words have become the target of auditory test and acoustic experiment. As the result of those experimental Procedures, the word accent in standard Korean may be said that it has a tendency of fixing first two syllables regardless of syllable numbers. The syllable types of HH, HL, LL in the first two syllables may be prominent at first syllable and the type of H may be at second syllable. Various prosodic features(parameters) including duration, intensity, and Fo(purely phonetic terms) were also strengthened in those positions. The result of this experiment can be cleared up like these : 1. The most important feature is proved as 'duration', the feature of intensity resulted in more subsidiary one than the feature of duration. 2. Fo( fundamental frequency) could be observed as having some coherent contour through almost all syllable types(99 ％), that is, in 2 syllable types, it had rising contour, in 2 syllable types, rising-falling contour, and in 4 syllable types, it contained rising-falling-rising contour. The result of auditory test was different with those contour forms of all Fo surveyed. With respect to these results, the discuss for Fo is determined' to be excluded comparing other features. 3. Finally, this thesis resulted in a decision that the word accent in standard Korean may has fixed(somewhat weaker) accent, especially fixed at first two syllables in almost all words. 4. Various kinds of syllable types related with 2,3,4 syllables, therefore, can be reclassified into 4 types of HH, HL, LH, LL following the concept of accent fixing placement(i.e. first two syllables). In these 4 types, the types of HH, HL, LL were prominent at the position of the first syllable , and the type of LH was prominent at the second syllable otherwise.