• Journal of Audiology & Otology
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.124-130
• /
• 2021

Background and Objectives: The study investigated vowel context effects on the perception of stop consonants in Malayalam. It also probed into the role of vowel context effects in determining the frequency of occurrence of various consonant-vowel (CV) syllables in Malayalam. Subjects and Methods: The study used a cross-sectional pre-experimental post-test only research design on 30 individuals with normal hearing, who were native speakers of Malayalam. The stimuli included three stop consonants, each spoken in three different vowel contexts. The resultant nine syllables were presented in original form and five gating conditions. The consonant recognition in different vowel contexts of the participants was assessed. The frequency of occurrence of the nine target syllables in the spoken corpus of Malayalam was also systematically derived. Results: The consonant recognition score was better in the /u/ vowel context compared with /i/ and /a/ contexts. The frequency of occurrence of the target syllables derived from the spoken corpus of Malayalam showed that the three stop consonants occurred more frequently with the vowel /a/ compared with /u/ and /i/. Conclusions: The findings show a definite vowel context effect on the perception of the Malayalam stop consonants. This context effect observed is different from that in other languages. Stop consonants are perceived better in the context of /u/ compared with the /a/ and /i/ contexts. Furthermore, the vowel context effects do not appear to determine the frequency of occurrence of different CV syllables in Malayalam.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.124-130
• /
• 2021

Background and Objectives: The study investigated vowel context effects on the perception of stop consonants in Malayalam. It also probed into the role of vowel context effects in determining the frequency of occurrence of various consonant-vowel (CV) syllables in Malayalam. Subjects and Methods: The study used a cross-sectional pre-experimental post-test only research design on 30 individuals with normal hearing, who were native speakers of Malayalam. The stimuli included three stop consonants, each spoken in three different vowel contexts. The resultant nine syllables were presented in original form and five gating conditions. The consonant recognition in different vowel contexts of the participants was assessed. The frequency of occurrence of the nine target syllables in the spoken corpus of Malayalam was also systematically derived. Results: The consonant recognition score was better in the /u/ vowel context compared with /i/ and /a/ contexts. The frequency of occurrence of the target syllables derived from the spoken corpus of Malayalam showed that the three stop consonants occurred more frequently with the vowel /a/ compared with /u/ and /i/. Conclusions: The findings show a definite vowel context effect on the perception of the Malayalam stop consonants. This context effect observed is different from that in other languages. Stop consonants are perceived better in the context of /u/ compared with the /a/ and /i/ contexts. Furthermore, the vowel context effects do not appear to determine the frequency of occurrence of different CV syllables in Malayalam.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.111-116
• /
• 2016

The Nasometer is most commonly used to assess the presence and degree of resonance problems in clinical settings and it provides nasalance scores to identify the acoustic correlates of nasality. Nasalance scores are influenced by factors related to speakers and speech stimuli. This study aims to examine the effect of vowel context and length of stimuli and age on nasalance scores. The participants were 20 adults and 45 children ranging in age from 3 to 5 years. The stimuli consisted of 12 sentences containing no nasal consonants. The stimuli in the three vowel contexts (low, high, and mixed) consisted of 4, 8, 16, and 31-syllable long sentences. Speakers were asked to repeat each stimulus after examiner. The results indicated significant effects of vowel contexts and stimulus length on nasalance scores. The nasalance scores for the high vowel contexts were significantly higher than those for the mixed and low vowel contexts. The nasalance scores for the mixed vowel contexts were significantly higher than those for the low vowel contexts. Speakers had higher nasalance scores for 4-syllable long sentences and 31-syllable long sentences than for 16-syllable long sentences. The effect of age on nasalance scores was not significant. The results of the study suggest that the vowel context and length of speech stimuli should be carefully considered when interpreting the nasalance scores.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.17-27
• /
• 2020

This paper examines kinematic characteristics of /pk/ clusters, as compared to /kk/ and /pp/ with varying vowel contexts and speech rate. The results of EMMA data from eight Seoul-Korean speakers indicate as follows. Firstly, comparing /pk/ to /pp/ sequences, lips closing movement was faster and spatially greater in the /a/-to-/a/ context while temporally longer in the /i/-to-/i/ context. It was smaller in spatial displacement and shorter in temporal duration in /pk/ sequences. Peak velocity did not vary. Secondly, comparing /pk/ with /pp/ and /kk/ controls, lip aperture was less constricted in the /a/-to-/a/ context than /i/-to-/i/, but the maximum contact between the upper and lower lips was invariant across different vocalic contexts within /pk/ sequences (/apka/=/ipki/). Categorical reduction of C1 in /pk/ sequences fell in with the low-vowel and fast-rate conditions with across-/within-speaker variability. Gradient reduction of C1 was observed in all C1C2 types, being more frequent in fast rate. Lastly, the jaw articulator was a stable indicator of rate effects. The implication of the current study is that gestural reduction occurs with categorical reduction and general spatiotemporal weakening in the assimilating contexts, while quantitative properties of gestures may be a reason for gradient reduction, not necessarily confined to place assimilation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.17-26
• /
• 2014

The present study examined epenthetic vowels produced by Korean learners of English in read sentences, in terms of acoustic measures and extra-phonological factors. The results demonstrated three main findings. First, epenthetic vowels had relatively high F1 values and a wide range of F2 values. Most of the epenthetic vowels were inserted near Korean high central vowels, but some vowels were inserted near front vowels due to co-articulation with surrounding vowels. Second, vowel epenthesis was affected by the context. The results showed that the epenthesis was frequently seen with word junctions between obstruents (e.g., stops-fricatives). Third, Korean learners were not affected by English background and were very weakly affected by orthography. English experience, which is one of the extra-phonological factors, was not related to epenthesis production. However, orthography, the other extra-phonological factor, very weakly affected the amount of epenthesis production. Nine percent of all epenthesis production was affected by the English past-tense suffix '-ed'; approximately 70% of the participants were affected by this suffix. The findings of the present study contributed to understanding vowel epenthesis. First, the study revealed that the epenthetic vowels produced by Korean learners of English were close to the high central vowel, supporting previous studies that the epenthetic vowel is quite close to the shortest vowel. Second, the study examined the various phonetic environments of epenthetic vowels, revealing that vowel epenthesis occurred more frequently in a certain phonetic circumstance.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.217-232
• /
• 2000

In this study, I investigate the role of post-consonantal fundamental frequency (F0) as a cue for automatic distinction of types of Korean stops and affricates. Rather than examining data obtained by restricting contexts to a minimum to prevent the interference of irrelevant factors, a relatively natural speaker independent speech corpus is analysed. Automatic and statistical approaches are adopted to annotate data, to minimise speaker variability, and to evaluate the results. In spite of possible loss of information during those automatic analyses, statistics obtained suggest that vowel F0 is a useful cue for distinguishing manners of articulation of Korean non-continuant obstruents having the same place of articulation, especially of lax and aspirated stops and affricates. On the basis of the statistics, automatic classification is attempted over the relevant consonants in a specific context where the micro-prosodic effects appear to be maximised. The results confirm the usefulness of this effect in application for Korean phone recognition.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.81-90
• /
• 2023

Auditory perceptual assessment and acoustic analysis are commonly used in clinical practice for voice evaluation. This study aims to explore the effects of speech task context on auditory perceptual assessment and acoustic measures in patients with voice disorders. Sustained vowel phonations (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /ɯ/, /ʌ/) and connected speech (a standardized paragraph 'kaeul' and nine sub-sentences) were obtained from a total of 22 patients with voice disorders. GRBAS ('G', 'R', 'B', 'A', 'S') and CAPE-V ('OS', 'R', 'B', 'S', 'P', 'L') auditory-perceptual assessment were evaluated by two certified speech language pathologists specializing in voice disorders using blind and random voice samples. Additionally, spectral and cepstral measures were analyzed using the analysis of dysphonia in speech and voice model (ADSV).When assessing voice quality with the GRBAS scale, it was not significantly affected by the vowel type except for 'B', while the 'OS', 'R' and 'B' in CAPE-V were affected by the vowel type (p<.05). In addition, measurements of CPP and L/H ratio were influenced by vowel types and sentence positions. CPP values in the standard paragraph showed significant negative correlations with all vowels, with the highest correlation observed for /e/ vowel (r=-.739). The CPP of the second sentence had the strongest correlation with all vowels. Depending on the speech stimulus, CAPE-V may have a greater impact on auditory-perceptual assessment than GRBAS, vowel types and sentence position with consonants influenced the 'B' scale, CPP, and L/H ratio. When using vowels in the voice assessment of patients with voice disorders, it would be beneficial to use not only /a/, but also the vowel /i/, which is acoustically highly correlated with 'breathy'. In addition, the /e/ vowel was highly correlated acoustically with the standardized passage and sub-sentences. Furthermore, given that most dysphonic signals are aperiodic, 2nd sentence of the 'kaeul' passage, which is the most acoustically correlated with all vowels, can be used with CPP. These results provide clinical evidence of the impact of speech tasks on auditory perceptual and acoustic measures, which may help to provide guidelines for voice evaluation in patients with voice disorders.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.3-15
• /
• 2014

An articulatory study (using an Electromagnetic Articulography, EMA) was conducted to explore effects of prosodic boundary strength (Intonational Phrase/IP versus Word/Wd), and focus (Focused/accented, Neutral, Unfocused/unaccented) on the kinematic realization of /m/ in the coda (${\ldots}$am#i${\ldots}$) and the onset (${\ldots}$a#mi${\ldots}$) conditions in Korean. (Here # refers to a prosodic boundary such as an IP or a Wd boundary). Several important points have emerged. First, the boundary effect on /m/s was most robustly observed in the temporal dimension in both the coda (IP-final) and the onset (IP-initial) conditions, generally in line with cross-linguistically observable boundary-related lengthening patterns. Crucially, however, in contrast with boundary-related slowing-down effects that have been observed in English, both the IP-final and IP-initial temporal expansions of Korean /m/s were not accompanied by an articulatory slowing down. They were, if anything, associated with a faster movement in the lip opening (release) phase (into the vowel). This suggests that the mechanisms underlying boundary-related temporal expansions may differ between languages. Second, observed boundary-induced strengthening effects (both spatial and temporal expansions, especially on the IP-initial /m/s) were remarkably similar to prominence (focus)-induced strengthening effects, which is again counter to phrase-initial strengthening patterns observed in English in which boundary effects are dissociated from prominent effects. This suggests that initial syllables in Korean may be a common focus for both boundary and prominence marking. These results, taken together, imply that the boundary-induced strengthening in Korean is different in nature from that in English, each being modulated by the individual language's prosodic system. Third, the coda and the onset /m/s were found to be produced in a subtly but significantly different way even in a Wd boundary condition, a potentially neutralizing (resyllabification) context. This suggests that although the coda may be phonologically 'resyllabified' into the following syllable in a phrase-medial position, its underlying syllable affiliation is kinematically distinguished from the onset.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.33-48
• /
• 2005

Differential diagnosis of articulation and resonance problems in the cleft lip and palate speech is required for evaluating various factors contribute to speech problems such as VPI, dental occlusion, palatal fistulae, learning. However, validity of speech stimuli is current issue to evaluate accurately each problem in cleft speech. This study was conducted to investigate speech stimuli using in the clinical setting and review the literatures and articles published 1990 to 2005 for helping develop standardized speech samples. The results were recommendation to evaluate properly velopharyngeal function when conducting a diagnostic evaluation as follows : 1) In identification hypernasality, the speech stimuli should be included low pressure consonants to eliminate effects of nasal emission, compensatory articulation. 2) Speech stimuli should be consist of visual, front sounds to eliminate compensatory articulation and to stimulate easily. 3) Regarding early diagnosis and treatment, speech stimuli need to develop for infants and preschooler. 4) Stimulus length on nasalance scores should be at least 6 syllables. 5) In phonetic context on nasalance scores, /i/ vowel should be take into consideration excluding paragraph. 6) Connected speech stimuli should be developed for evaluating intelligibility and VP function.