• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.39-44
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• 2018

This study aimed to examine whether preconsonantal vowel shortening, which occurs in many languages, exists in Chinese. To this end, we compared 15 pairs of Chinese bi-syllabic words with intervocalic unaspirated/aspirated stops. The results revealed that (1) the effect of the feature aspiration of the following stop on the preceding vowel (V1) was neither significant nor consistent though V1 tends to be a little longer before an unaspirated stop; (2) the following unaspirated stop closure (C) was similar to or longer than its aspirated cognate; (3) the durational sum of V1 and C was longer when the stop is unaspirated, and V1 and C had no compensatory relationship; (4) Voice Onset Time (VOT) was significantly longer when the stop is aspirated than unaspirated; (5) the vowel (V2) following VOT was significantly longer when the stop is unaspirated, so the differentials in VOT were partially compensated; (6) despite the partial compensation, the sum of VOT and V2 was longer when the stop is aspirated; (7) words with an intervocalic aspirated stop were longer than those with its unaspirated cognate. It is concluded that while VOT is the most important factor for deciding the timing structure of Chinese words with intervocalic stops, closure duration is crucial for Korean and many other languages.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.77-89
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• 2018

Speech articulators are coordinated for the purpose of segmental constriction in terms of a task. In particular, vertical jaw movements repeatedly contribute to consonantal as well as vocalic constriction. The current study explores vertical jaw movements in conjunction with bilabial constriction in bilabial stop /p/ in the context /a/-to-/a/. Revisiting kinematic data of /p/ collected using the electromagenetic midsagittal articulometer (EMMA) method from seven (four female and three male) speakers of Seoul Korean, we examined maximum vertical jaw position, its relative timing with respect to the upper and lower lips, and lip aperture minima. The results of those dependent variables are recapitulated in terms of linguistic (different word boundaries) and paralinguistic (different speech rates) factors as follows. Firstly, maximum jaw height was lower in the across-word boundary condition (across-word < within-word), but it did not differ as a function of different speech rates (comfortable = fast). Secondly, more reduction in the lip aperture (LA) gesture occurred in fast rate, while word-boundary effects were absent. Thirdly, jaw raising was still in progress after the lips' positional extrema were achieved in the within-word condition, while the former was completed before the latter in the across-word condition. Lastly, relative temporal lags between the jaw and the lips (UL and LL) were more synchronous in fast rate, compared to comfortable rate. When these results are considered together, it is possible to posit that speakers are not tolerant of lenition to the extent that it is potentially realized as a labial approximant in either word-boundary condition while jaw height still manifested lower jaw position in the across-word boundary condition. Early termination of vertical jaw maxima before vertical lower lip maxima across-word condition may be partly responsible for the spatial reduction of jaw raising movements. This may come about as a consequence of an excessive number of factors (e.g., upper lip height (UH), lower lip height (LH), jaw angle (JA)) for the representation of a vector with two degrees of freedom (x, y) engaged in a gesture-based task (e.g., lip aperture (LA)). In the task-dynamic application toolkit, the jaw angle parameter can be assigned numerical values for greater weight in the across-word boundary condition, which in turn gives rise to lower jaw position. Speech rate-dependent spatial reduction in lip aperture may be able to be resolved by means of manipulating activation time of an active tract variable in the gestural score level.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2002

Voice onset time (VOT) is defined as the time interval from the oral release of a stop consonant to the onset of glottal pulsing in the following vowel. VOT is a temporal characteristic of stop consonants that reflects the complex timing of glottal articulation relative to supraglottal articulation. There have been many reports on efforts to clarify the acoustical and physiological properties that differentiate the three types of Korean stops, including acoustic, fiberscopic, aerodynamic and electromyographic studies. In the acoustic and fiberscopic studies for stop consonants, the voice onset time and glottal width during the production of stops has been known as the longest and largest in the heavily aspirated type followed by the slightly aspirated type and unaspirated types. The thyroarytenoid and posterior cricoarytenoid muscles were physiologically inter-correlated for differentiating these types of stops. However, a review of the English literature shows that the fine movement of the mucosal edges of the vocal folds during the production of stops has not been well documented. In recent. years, a new method for high-speed recording of laryngeal dynamics by use of a digital recording system allows us to observe with fine time resolution. The movements of the vocal fold edges were documented during the period of stop production using a fiberscopic system of high speed digital images. By observing the glottal width and the visual vibratory movements of the vocal folds before voice onset, the heavily aspirated stop was characterized as being more prominent and dynamic than the slightly aspirated and unaspirated stops.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.193-198
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• 1997

Stuttering is a movement disorder of speech-motor control characterized by inappropriate timing of lingual, labial, laryngeal, and respiratory muscles. Treatment for adult stutterers have included traditional and non-traditional behavioral and psychiatric modalities, many with good initial success but all with limited long-term benefit. Recent trials of botulinum toxin injection was somewhat favorable. In this study, the authors injected 5-8 U of botulinum toxin into the thyroarytenoid muscle bilaterally in cases of disabling stutterers. Evaluation after 4 weeks of injection, 80% of the patients was improved more than one positive scale. However, no one was improved to almostly normal range.

• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.5
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• pp.221-264
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• 2003

This paper takes issue with the idea of language as a 'serial-time structure' as opposed to the 'real-time event' of speech, an idea entrenched in Chomskyan model of linguistic theory. The discussion centers around the leitmotif question: Is language constructed entirely from a finite set of apriori discrete symbol types, as the 'competence vs performance' dichotomy implies\ulcorner A set of linguistic patterns examined in this study, largely with regard to phonological considerations, points to the evidence to the contrary. That is, while the patterns may be said to be linguistically distinct, they are not discretely, different, i.e. not different enough to be reliably differentiated. It is demonstrated that much of current research in phonology, including the most recent Optimality Theory, is misdirected in that it falsely presupposes a discrete universal phonetic inventory. The main thrust of the present study is that there is no sharp boundary between 'competence' defined as the formal, symbolic, discrete time domain of language and human cognition on the one hand and 'performance' as the continuous, fuzzy, real-time domain of human physiology on the other.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.568-574
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• 2009

Tongue-tie is a congenital anomaly characterized by an abnormally short lingual frenum, which may restrict tongue tip mobility, In the neonate and infant, tongue-tie was said to cause difficult breast-feeding, In the older infant, toddler and young child, poor speech has been frequently listed because movement of tongue tip is limit ed. Also as a abnormal tongue position, various orthodontic problems, later mechanical and social manifestations could be developed. Treatment options such as observation, speech therapy, frenotomy and frenectomy have been suggested. The optimal timing for the surgery has not been determined, but early intervention may be appropriate for the children with significant tongue-tie who has the significant potential to speech difficulties and later social and mechanical problems. Sedation is an effective method for incapable of cooperative and the handicapped children, necessary to early intervention. We report three cases, using oral sedation for the frenectomy in young children with severe tongue-tie. After treatments, we could find out sufficient tongue movement and improved speech ability.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.109-121
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• 2013

This study examined several kinematic properties of the primary articulator (the tongue dorsum) and the supplementary articulator (the jaw) in the articulation of the voiceless velar stop (/k/) within nonassimilating contexts. We examined in particular the spatiotemporal properties (constriction duration and constriction maxima) from the constriction onset to the constriction offset by analyzing a velar (/k/) followed by the coronal fricative (/s/), the coronal stop (/t/), and the labial (/p/) in across-word boundary conditions (/k#s/, /k#t/, and /k#p/). Along with these measurements, we investigated intergestural temporal coordination between C1 and C2 and the jaw articulator in relation to its coordination with the articulation of consonant sequences. The articulatory movement data was collected by means of electromagnetic midsagittal articulometry (EMMA). Four native speakers of Seoul Korean participated in the laboratory experiment. The results showed several characteristics. First, a velar (/k/) in C1 was not categorically reduced. Constriction duration and constriction degree of the velar (/k/) were similar within nonassimilating contexts (/k#s/=/k#t/=/k#p/). This might mean that spatiotemporal attributes during constriction duration were stable and consistent across different contexts, which might be subsequently associated with the nontarget status of the velar in place assimilation. Second, the gestural overlap could be represented as the order of /k#s/ (less) < /k#p/ (intermediate) < /k#t/ (more) as we measured the onset-to-onset lag (a longer lag indicated shorter gestural overlap.). This indicates a gestural overlap within nonassimilating contexts may not be constrained by any of the several constraints including the perceptual recoverability constraint (e.g., more overlap in Front-to-Back sequences compared to the reverse order (Back-to-Front) since perceptual cues in C1 can be recovered anytime during C2 articulation), the low-level speech motor constraint (e.g., more overlap in lingual-nonlingual sequences as compared to the lingual-lingual sequences), or phonological contexts effects (e.g., similarity in gestural overlap within nonassimilating contexts). As one possible account for more overlap in /k#t/ sequences as compared to /k#p/, we suspect speakers' knowledge may be receptive to extreme encroachment on C1 by the gestural overlap of the coronal in C2 since it does not obscure the perceptual cue of C1 as much as the labial in C2. Third, actual jaw position during C2 was higher in coronals (/s/, /t/) than in the labial (/p/). However, within the coronals, there was no manner-dependent jaw height difference in C2 (/s/=/t/). Vertical jaw position of C1 and C2 was seen as inter-dependent as higher jaw position in C1 was closely associated with C2. Lastly, a greater gap in jaw height was associated with longer intergestural timing (e.g., less overlap), but was confined to the cluster type (/kp/) with the lingual-nonlingual sequence. This study showed that Korean jaw articulation was independent from coordinating primary articulators in gestural overlap in some cluster types (/k#s/, /k#t/) while not in others (e.g., /k#p/). Overall, the results coherently indicate the velar stop (/k/) in C1 was robust in articulation, which may have subsequently contributed to the nontarget status of the velar (/k/) in place assimilation processes.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2022

This study aimed to investigate the voice onset time (VOT) of plosives in the VCV syllables by the place of articulation and phonation type spoken by children with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) in comparison with children with typical hearing (TH). In all, 15 children with bilateral CIs and 15 children with TH participated in this study, aged between 5 to 10 years. All children produced 9 VCV syllables and their VOT were analyzed by the Praat software. There was no significant difference in mean VOT between children with bilateral CIs and children with TH. However, there was a significant difference in mean VOT by the place of articulation, such that the VOT for velars were longer than those for bilabials and alveolars. Additionally, there was a significant difference in mean VOT by the phonation type, such that the VOT of aspirated consonants were longer than those of lenis and fortis consonants. The results of this study suggest that children with bilateral CIs can distinguish the acoustic properties of plosive consonants and control the speech timing between the structures of the larynx and the oral cavity at a similar level as children with TH.