• MALSORI
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• no.38
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• pp.125-136
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• 1999

This study examined the perception and production of Korean lax, fortis and aspirated stops in three apraxic patients. All of tile subjects made more production errors than perception errors. This indicates that apraxic patients have problems in phonetic execution rather than phonological representation. Additionally, in both production and perception, there were more errors in non-word-initial consonants than in word-initial consonants. These findings contradict those of the previous studies which report more errors in word-initial consonants. This study also found that, unlike previous studies in the types of errors made, distortion errors were high in both non-word-initial and word-initial consonants in apraxic patients. Generally, VOT of the stops showed significant differences among lax, fortis, and aspirated stops, which indicates that there is a failure not in choosing the appropriate stop but in positioning or motor planning at the articulation stage.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2016

This study examined the deletion of onset consonant in the word-internal structure in spontaneous Seoul Korean speech. It used the dataset of speakers in their 20s extracted from the Korean Corpus of Spontaneous Speech (Yun et al., 2015). The proportion of deletion of word-internal onset consonants was analyzed using the linear mixed-effects regression model. The factors that promoted the deletion of onsets were primarily the types of consonants and their phonetic contexts. The results showed that onset deletion was more likely to occur for a lenis velar stop [k] than the other consonants, and in the phonetic contexts, when the preceding vowel was a low central vowel [a]. Moreover, some speakers tended to more frequently delete onset consonants (e.g., [k] and [n]) than other speakers, which reflected individual differences. This study implies that word-internal onsets undergo a process of gradient reduction within individuals' articulatory strategies.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.139-151
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• 2005

Previous studies have shown that Korean students have difficulty identifying some English consonants which are not in the Korean sound inventory. The aim of this study was to examine the accuracy rate of English consonants correctly identified by 130 college students in order to find out which English consonants were difficult for the students to perceive. The subject's task was to identify one of the minimal pairs played in a quiet laboratory classroom. 100 minimal pairs consisted of syllables with various onsets or codas: stops, fricatives, affricates, liquids and nasals. Results were as follows: First, the average score of the English major group was significantly higher than that of the non-English major group. Second, there was a similar distribution in the rank order of minimal pairs sorted by the accuracy rate between the two groups. Third, the accuracy rate systematically decreased as each score range decreased. Fourth, the students showed higher accuracy in the perception of liquids than that of the stop-fricative contrast. Fifth, the accuracy score in onset position was higher than in coda position. Finally, the students still had problem telling voiced consonants from voiceless ones, especially in coda position. It would be desirable to extend the present research to middle or high school students to fundamentally resolve those listening problems.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to investigate Korean native speakers' perception of English sounds according to groupings of phonetic contrasts. The four groupings looked at were vowels, voicing (voiced-unvoiced), fricatives with difference in place of articulation, and other clusters of specific sound contrasts, such as stop-fricatives and liquids. The position of a sound in syllable was also examined. According to the results of ANOVA and a post-hoc analysis, the perception of vowels, in the medial position was different from that of consonants in the initial and final position. Vowels proved to be the most difficult group to perceive correctly. With the consonants, there was not a big difference whether the contrasts came initially or finally. The order of difficulty was liquids, fricatives, stop-fricatives, and finally voicing.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2015

Changes in speech production in normal elderly might be subtle and gradual. Therefore, an acoustic analysis is appropriate to identify the effect of aging on speech. For this purpose, this study examined four speech parameters; voice onset time (VOT), VOT range, $f_0$ of following vowel($f_0FV$), and $f_0FV$ difference in two age groups, old (mean age 74.57 yrs.) and young (m: 27.43 yrs.). The results show that compared to the older group the younger demonstrated significantly shorter VOTs in lenis and longer in aspirated stop. VOT ranges were relatively broad and consequently overlapped between the phonation types (e.g., lenis, fortis, aspirated). The $f_0FV$ values in the older group which are an integral parameter with VOT were lower compared with the young group. The $f_0FV$ differences in the old female group were significantly narrower than the young female group, therefore, clear distinction became difficult. In conclusion, contrast in temporal information was obscured, and the domain of glottal information was diminished on stop consonants in Korean elderly. The findings suggest that central/peripheral changes by aging could lead to a deficit in coordination between phonation and articulation.

• MALSORI
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• no.53
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• pp.1-16
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• 2005

This experimental study aims to test the hypothesis that the occurrence of English sentence-final stop release is, at least, partly predictable by examining its phonetic context. 10 native(5 male and 5 female) speakers of American English recorded, in a sound-proof booth, sentences excerpted from novels and the natural documents on the World Wide Web. Based on the waveforms and spectrograms of the recorded sentences, judgements of the release of a sentence-final stop were made. If the aperiodic energy of a given final stop lasted more than .015 second, it was considered to be "released." The result reveals that English sentence-final stops tend to be released when they are 1) velar consonants, 2) preceeded by tense vowels, and 3) coda consonants of content words. The phonetic environment in which final stops are often released can be characterized by the articulatory comfortableness and the need for release burst noise, without which the final stops may not be correctly perceived. By examining the release of English final stops, it is concluded that the phonological events, which had been considered to occur rather "randomly," in fact, reflect the universal tendency of human speech: to minimize the speakers' and hearers' effort.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.24
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• pp.112-119
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• 2011

This study presents experiments which examined the role of amplitude and fundamental frequency (f0) in the phonetic perception of short versus long stop length contrasts in Japanese (e.g., [t] vs. [tt]). Stop length contrasts are normally characterized by differences in the duration of stop closures. However, closure duration can be unreliable as a perceptual cue when one considers variability in the rate at which people speak. Acoustically, the amplitude and f0 of the vowel following stop consonants are known to covary with the length distinction of stops in Japanese. Given this fact, the current study examined amplitude and f0 as potential secondary cues to the distinction. The results indicate that even though both amplitude and f0 are robust correlates, Japanese listeners do not use these cues in categorizing short versus long stops.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.217-224
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• 1997

The present study was performed to investigate the voice onset time(VOT) of Korean stop consonants as the expanded research of Pyo and Choi(1996) : the intensity, and the air flow rate of Korean stops as the preliminary study f3r the classical singing training. Nine Korean stops(/P, P', $P^{h}$/, /t, t', $t^{h}$/, /k, k', $k^{h}$/) and a vowel /a/ were used as speech materials. CV and VCV syllable patterns were used for VOT measurement, and CV pattern was used for intensity and air flow rate measurement. Five males and five females pronounced the speech tasks with comfortable pitch and intensity : VOT, intensity, and air flow rate were measured. As results, the prevocalic stop consonants showed bilabials, the shortest VOT and velars, the longest one, except the unaspirated stops which showed the shortest was velar /k'/, and the alveolar /t'/ was the longest. Considering the tensity, heavily aspirated stops showed the longest, and the unaspirated, the shortest. Also the intervocalic stops showed similar results with the prevocalic stops, except the slightly aspirated stops which showed alveolar sound was the longest, and the bilabials, which showed the shortest was the slightly aspirated /p/, unlike the prevocalic stops, the unaspirated /p'/ the shortest. All of prevocalic stops showed the highest air flow rate in heavily aspirated stops, the second, thee slightly aspirated ones, and the lowest was the unaspirated stops. And as a whole, bilabials were the highest, and velars, the lowest, except in the heavily aspirated stops, which was the alveolar sound, the lowest. In the dimension of intensity, the unaspirated and bilabials were the highest, and the heavily aspirated and velars were e lowest, except the slightly aspirated stops, which were the bilabials the lowest, and the alveolars the highest.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.49-65
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• 2006

Recently, several theories on the digital speech signal processing expanded the communication boundary between human beings and machines drastically. The aim of this study is to collect dialectal speech in Korea on a large scale and to establish a digital speech data base in order to provide the data base for further research on the Korean dialectal and the creation of value-added network. 528 informants across the country participated in this study. Acoustic characteristics of vowels and consonants are analyzed by Power spectrum and Spectrogram of CSL. Test words were made on the picture cards and letter cards which contained each vowel and each consonant in the initial position of words. Plot formants were depicted on a vowel chart and transitions of diphthongs were compared according to dialectal speech. Spectral times, VOT, VD, and TD were measured on a Spectrogram for stop consonants, and fricative frequency, intensity, and lateral formants (LF1, LF2, LF3) for fricative consonants. Nasal formants (NF1, NF2, NF3) were analyzed for different nasalities of nasal consonants. The acoustic characteristics of dialectal speech showed that young generation speakers did not show distinction between close-mid /e/ and open-mid$/\epsilon/$. The diphthongs /we/ and /wj/ showed simple vowels or diphthongs depending to dialect speech. The sibilant sound /s/ showed the aspiration preceded to fricative noise. Lateral /l/ realized variant /r/ in Kyungsang dialectal speech. The duration of nasal consonants in Chungchong dialectal speech were the longest among the dialects.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.98-102
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• 2006

Background and Objectives : Voice onset time(VOT) is defined as the time interval from oral release of a stop consonant to the onset of glottal pulsing in the following vowel. VOT is a temporal characteristics of stop consonants that reflects the complex timing of glottal articulation relative to supraglottal articulation. Stop consonants are characterized by creation of a pressure difference across a complete occlusion in the vocal tract, followed by a sudden release 'burst' due to opening that occlusion. The objects of this study is to evaluate a usefulness of voice onset time in the assessment of voice disorderd patients. Subjects : Subjects were 20 adults with normal voice and with benign laryngeal disorders. Subjects with voice disorders represented the following vocal pathologies : vocal polyp, vocal nodule, Reinke's edema and unilateral vocal fold paralysis(UVFP). Control subjects were matched for age (21-40 yews old) and sex(male) with the voice disorders subjects and had normal vocal qualities with no history of voice disorders. Methods : Each voice-disordered and matched control subject read the test passages containing three types of Korean bilabial consonants. VOT measures were made for the initial $/p/p^h/\;and\;/p'/$. VOT was measured using acoustic waveform or wide band spectrogram. Results : For each voiceless stop consonants, there was a significant difference in VOT between the voice disordered and normal subjects. The mean VOTs of the lax stops in UVFP was significantly shorter than those of control subjects in the UVFP. The mean VOTs of the aspirated stops in the vocal polyp and nodule were longer than those of control subjects, but not significant. The mean VOTs of the glottalized in voice disordered groups were longer than those of control subjects, and significant statistically in the UVFP. Conclusions : VOT may be a clinically useful acoustic parameter in the assessment of voice disordered patients, especially in the unilateral vocal fold paralysis.