• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.157-164
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• 2004

Human has average pitch-level when speak naturally. That is 'Habitual pitch level'. However, if noise added at speech, the pitch-wave is changed irregularly. We can estimate noise level of speech by using this point. This paper calculates energy level of the input speech, pitch period from of above limited energy level by NAMDF (Normalized Average Magnitude Difference Function) method, after cut each frame by pitch period unit, and propose a method that estimate noise level through closed pitch of input speech.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.35-46
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• 2021

In this study, we examined the interactive aspects between pitch reduction phenomena considered a universal language phenomenon and native language interference in the production of L2 intonation performed by Chinese learners of Korean. To investigate their interaction, we conducted an acoustic analysis using acoustic measures such as pitch span, pitch level, pitch dynamic quotient, skewness, and kurtosis. In addition, the correlation between text comprehension and pitch was examined. The analyzed material consisted of four Korean discourses containing five and seven sentences of varying difficulty. Seven Korean native speakers and thirty Chinese learners who differed in their Korean proficiency participated in the production test. The results, for differences by language, showed that Chinese had a more expanded pitch span, and a higher pitch level than Korean. The analysis between groups showed that at the beginner and intermediate levels, pitch reduction was prominent, i.e., their Korean was characterized by a compressed pitch span, low pitch level, and less sentence internal pitch variation. Contrariwise, the pitch use of advanced speakers was most similar to Korean native speakers. There was no significant correlation between text difficulty and pitch use. Through this study, we observed that pitch reduction was more pronounced than native language interference in the phonetic layer.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.67-77
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• 2014

This study investigated (1) whether Korean learners of English use discourse-level prosody in L2 production as native speakers of English do, and (2) whether discourse-level prosody is also found in the Korean language, as is evident in the prosody of native speakers of English. The study compared the production of the same 15 sentences in two types of reading materials, sentence-level and discourse-level. This study analyzed the onset pitch, sentence mean pitch and pause length to examine the paratone (intonational paragraph) realization in discourse-level speech. The results showed that in L2 discourse-level prosody, the Korean speakers were limited in displaying paratone and did not made significant difference between sentence-level and discourse-level prosody. On the other hand, in L1 discourse-level text, both English and Korean participants demonstrated paratone using pitch. However, there were differences in using prosodic cues between two groups. In using pauses, the ES group paused longer before both the orthographically marked and not marked topic sentences. The KS group paused longer only before the orthographically marked topic sentence in both L1 and L2 text reading. In the comparison of sentence-level and discourse-level prosody, the topic sentences were marked by different prosodic cues. English participants used higher sentence mean pitch, and the Korean participants used higher onset pitch.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.35-47
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of Chinese high and level vs. rising tone on the pitch pattern of corresponding Sino-Korean words delivered by Chinese learners of Korean and to examine the aspects how these two tones of corresponding Chinese words affect the pitch patterns of Sino-Korean words. Scope of this research is limited to the Chinese learners of Korean, especially when they pronounce same-form-same-meaning Sino-Korean words. In this study, Chinese learners pronounced both Chinese words and corresponding Sino-Korean words. By using the software learners' pitch pattern were recorded, analyzed, and compared with the tone of corresponding Chinese words. Experimental results showed that Sino-Korean words were affected by Chinese 'high and level tone - high and level tone', 'high and level tone - rising tone', 'high and level tone - falling-rising tone', 'high and level tone - falling tone' and 'rising tone - falling tone' when they started with lenis sounds. On the other hand when Sino-Korean words started with aspirated sounds they were affected by Chinese 'rising tone - high and level tone', 'rising tone - rising tone', 'rising tone - falling-rising tone', 'rising tone - falling tone'. In conclusion, the Chinese learners' pitch patterns of Sino-Korean words are affected by both Chinese high and level & rising tone, especially when Sino-Korean words started with lenis sounds they were more affected by Chinese high and level tone, on the other hand Chinese rising tone influence Sino-Korean words more when they were started with aspirated sounds.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.151-164
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• 2004

This study examined the use of intonation in children with single word sentences and investigated the communicative functions of pitch range and pitch direction. Two children aged 13months were observed in interaction with their mothers for 10 months. The vocalizations were coded separately for communicative function and for prosodic feature. Results show that level tones are used most frequently, and pitch range is higher for request than declaration or answer and lower for answer than request or declaration. And trends in prosodic contours were observed in request, declaration, and answer respectively. For one child, rising tones were frequently associated with request whereas rising-falling tone with declaration. For the other child, rising-level tones were more frequently associated with request whereas falling-level appeared more often in conjunction with declaration. These trends appeared more distinct in proportion as they grow in months. This result indicate that the way to express communicative functions transfer gradually from differentiating pitch range to diversify pitch direction.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to see the effects of pitch and length patterns on spoken word recognition. In Experiment 1, a syllable monitoring task was used to see the effects of pitch and length on the pre-lexical level of spoken word recognition. For both Seoul dialect speakers and Daegu dialect speakers, pitch and length did not affect the syllable detection processes. This result implies that there is little effect of pitch and length in pre-lexical processing. In Experiment 2, a lexical decision task was used to see the effect of pitch and length on the lexical access level of spoken word recognition. In this experiment, word frequency (low and high) as well as pitch and length was manipulated. The results showed that pitch and length information did not play an important role for Seoul dialect speakers, but that it did affect lexical decision processing for Daegu dialect speakers. Pitch and length seem to affect lexical access during the word recognition process of Daegu dialect speakers.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.89-92
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• 2005

Using natural speech commands for controlling a human-robot is an interesting topic in the field of robotics. In this paper, our main focus is on the verification of a speaker who gives a command to decide whether he/she is an authorized person for commanding. Among possible dynamic features of natural speech, pitch period is one of the most important ones for characterizing speech signals and it differs usually from person to person. However, current techniques of pitch detection are still not to a desired level of accuracy and robustness. When the signal is noisy or there are multiple pitch streams, the performance of most techniques degrades. In this paper, we propose a two-level approach for pitch detection which in compare with standard pitch detection algorithms, not only increases accuracy, but also makes the performance more robust to noise. In the first level of the proposed approach we discriminate voiced from unvoiced signals based on a neural classifier that utilizes cepstrum sequences of speech as an input feature set. Voiced signals are then further processed in the second level using a modified standard AMDF-based pitch detection algorithm to determine their pitch periods precisely. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed system is better than those of conventional pitch detection algorithms for speech signals in clean and noisy environments.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.97-105
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• 2015

This research mainly focuses on intonational characteristics of synchronous English speech. Intonation contours were extracted from 1,848 utterances produced in two different speaking modes (solo vs. synchronous) by 28 (12 women and 16 men) native speakers of English. Synchronous speech is found to be slower than solo speech. Women are found to speak slower than men. The effect size of speech rate caused by different speaking modes is greater than gender differences. However, there is no interaction between the two factors (speaking modes vs. gender differences) in terms of speech rate. Analysis of pitch point features has it that synchronous speech has smaller Pt (pitch point movement time), Pr (pitch point pitch range), Ps (pitch point slope) and Pd (pitch point distance) than solo speech. There is no interaction between the two factors (speaking modes vs. gender differences) in terms of pitch point features. Analysis of sentence level features reveals that synchronous speech has smaller Sr (sentence level pitch range), Ss (sentence slope), MaxNr (normalized maximum pitch) and MinNr (normalized minimum pitch) but greater Min (minimum pitch) and Sd (sentence duration) than solo speech. It is also shown that the higher the Mid (median pitch), the MaxNr and the MinNr in solo speaking mode, the more they are reduced in synchronous speaking mode. Max, Min and Mid show greater speaker discriminability than other features.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.79-90
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• 2014

An intonation curve stylization was used for an acoustical analysis of English speech. For the analysis, acoustical feature values were extracted from 1,848 utterances produced with normal and fast speech rate by 28 (12 women and 16 men) native speakers of English. Men are found to speak faster than women at normal speech rate but no difference is found between genders at fast speech rate. Analysis of pitch point features has it that fast speech has greater Pt (pitch point movement time), Pr (pitch point pitch range), and Pd (pitch point distance) but smaller Ps (pitch point slope) than normal speech. Men show greater Pt, Pr, and Pd than women. Analysis of sentence level features reveals that fast speech has smaller Sr (sentence level pitch range), Sd (sentence duration), and Max (maximum pitch) but greater Ss (sentence slope) than normal speech. Women show greater Sr, Ss, Sp (pitch difference between the first pitch point and the last), Sd, MaxNr (normalized Max), and MinNr (normalized Min) than men. As speech rate increases, women speak with greater Ss and Sr than men.

• 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.