• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제5권2호
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• pp.25-31
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• 2013

This study examined cross-generational changes in the vowel system of Seoul Korean. Acoustic analyses of the vowel formants of /o/ and /u/, and their Euclidean distances in the vowel space were undertaken to explore an on-going merger of these two vowels as proposed in previous acoustic studies and a phonological analysis by Chae (1999). A robust cross-generational change of /o/ and /u/ was found, more evident for female speakers than for male speakers. For female speakers, with each successive generation, /o/ became increasingly approximated with /u/, regardless of the syllable positions that the target vowels were posited, whereas the cross-generational differences in the Euclidean distances were only shown in the second syllable position for the male speakers. These results demonstrate that 1) women are more advanced than men in the on-going approximation of /o/ and /u/; 2) the approximation of /o/ and /u/ is common in the non-initial position. Taken together, the merger of /o/ and /u/ appears to be in progress in Seoul Korean.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.49-53
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• 2017

Formant frequencies depend on the position of tongue, the shape of lips, and larynx. In the auditory system, the external ear canal is an open-end resonator, which can modify the voice characteristics. This study investigates the effect of the real ear on formant frequencies. Fifteen subjects ranging from 22 to 30 years of age participated in the study. This study employed three corner vowels: the low central vowel /a/, the high front vowel /i/, and the high back vowel /u/. For this study, the voice of a well-educated undergraduate who majored in speech-language pathology, was recorded with a high performance condenser microphone placed in the upper pinna and in the ear canal. Paired t-test showed that there were significant difference in the formant frequencies of F1, F2, F3, and F4 between the free field and the real ear. For /a/, all formant frequencies decreased significantly in the real ear. For /i/, F2 increased and F3 and F4 decreased. For /u/, F1 and F2 increased, but F3 and F4 decreased. It seems that these voice modifications in the real ear contribute to interpreting voice quality and understanding speech, timbre, and individual characteristics, which are influenced by the shape of the outer ear and external ear canal in such a way that formant frequencies become centralized in the vowel space.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 2000년도 7월 학술대회지
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• pp.353-363
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• 2000

The consonant system of English is relatively uniform throughout the English-speaking countries. Accents of English are mainly known to differ in terms of their vowel systems as well as in the phonetic realisations of vowel phonemes. The results of an acoustic study of vowel phonology of Japanese English, Singapore English and Indian English are presented, and an attempt is then made to compare the vowel phonology of these non-native varieties with that of Scottish English and RP. Various native varieties of English are thus shown to differ from each other in major ways, as much, perhaps, as the non-native varieties differ from the native varieties. Nevertheless, native speakers of English appear to be mutually intelligible to a degree that does not extend to non-native varieties. Obviously there are features that various native accents have in common which facilitate their mutual intelligibility, and these features are not shared by non-native accents. It is proposed that the foreign learner adopt certain core features of English in his pronunciation if he is to use English effectively as an international language. The common core that is significant in the communication process will be discussed. In conclusion, some pragmatic implications for the English language education in the new millennium will be articulated.

• 정보과학회 컴퓨팅의 실제 논문지
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• 제21권11호
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• pp.713-720
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• 2015

컴퓨팅 기술과 네트워크의 발달로 인해, 정보 기기가 소형화되고 이동성이 강조되고 있다. 이에 따라 모바일 환경에서 작동 가능한 음성 인식 시스템에 대한 수요가 최근 급격히 증대되고 있다. 본 논문은 음소 기반 한국어 음성 인식 시스템의 일부로서, 한국어 모음 'ㅐ'에 대한 새로운 인식 방식을 제안한다. 제안하는 방식은 주파수 영역에서의 분석을 배제하고, 시간 영역에서의 시퀀스 패턴에 기반하여 인식을 수행함으로써, 계산 비용을 현저히 절감할 수 있다. 'ㅐ'의 전형적인 시퀀스 패턴들을 탐지하기 위한 세 가지 알고리즘이 제시되며, 이를 결합하여 최종 판별을 수행한다. 실험 결과를 통해, 제안하는 방식이 89.1%의 정확도로 모음 'ㅐ'를 인식할 수 있음을 확인하였다.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제6권3호
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• pp.139-145
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• 2014

The paper describes methods of conducting vowel analysis from a large-scale corpus with the aids of forced alignment and optimal formant ceiling methods. 'Read Style Corpus of Standard Korean' is used for building the forced alignment system and a subset of the corpus for the processing and extraction of features for vowel analysis based on optimal formant ceiling. The results of the vowel analysis are reliable and comparable to the results obtained using traditional analytical methods. The findings indicate that the methods adopted for the analysis can be extended and be used for more fine-grained analysis without time-consuming manual labeling without losing accuracy and reliability.

• 대한전자공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전자공학회 2003년도 컴퓨터소사이어티 추계학술대회논문집
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• pp.195-198
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• 2003

The accuracy of automatic speech recognition system depends on the presence of background noise and speaker variability such as sex, intonation of speech, and speaking rate. Specially, the speaking rate of both inter-speaker and intra-speaker is a serious cause of mis-recognition. In this paper, we propose the compensation method of the speaking rate by the ratio of each vowel's length in a phrase. First the number of feature vectors in a phrase is estimated by the information of speaking rate. Second, the estimated number of feature vectors is assigned to each syllable of the phrase according to the ratio of its vowel length. Finally, the process of feature vector extraction is operated by the number that assigned to each syllable in the phrase. As a result the accuracy of automatic speech recognition was improved using the proposed compensation method of the speaking rate.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.529-533
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• 1996

There are some similar phonological properties shared by different languages. The phenomenon of vowel length is just one of them which shows distinctive futures. In some languages long vowels serve to differentiate meanings. In that case the phonological context it creates is important and so it has to be incorporated into the phonemic inventory of the language, otherwise there will be misunderstanding. In this paper I will try to explain the Turkish vowel system as well as the Korean, and then to show how long vowels take their forms in Turkish and Korean.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.521-528
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• 1996

This presentation explores on the perceptual characteristics of the lateral sound /l/ in CV syllables. At initial position we found that /l/ has well marked formant transitions. Then several questions arise: 1) are these formant structures dependent on the following vowel\ulcorner. 2) Are the formant transitions giving an additional cue for the identification\ulcorner Considering that the French vocalic system presents a greater variety of vowels than Spanish, several experiments were designed to verify to what extent a more extensive range of vocalic timbres contribute to the perception of /l/. Natural emissions of /l/ produced in Argentine Spanish and Canadian French CV syllables were recorded, where V was successively /i, e, a, o, u/ for Spanish and /i, e, $\varepsilon$, a, $\alpha$, o, u, y, \phi$/ for French. For each item, the segment C was maintained and V was replaced by cutting & splicing by each of the remaining vowels without transitions. Results of the identification tests for Spanish show that natural /l/ segments with low Fl and high formants F3, F4 can be clearly identified in the /i, e, u/ vowel contexts without transitions. For French subjects the combination of /l/ with a vowel without transitions reflected correct identifications for its own original vowel context in /e, $\varepsilon$, y, $\phi$/. For both languages, in all these combinations, F1 values remained rather steady along the syllable. In the case of /o, u/ very likely the F2 difference lead to a variety of perceptions of the original /l/. For example in Ilul, French subjects reported some identifications of /l/ as a vowel, mainly /y/. Our observations reinforce the importance of F1 as a relevant cue for /l/, and the incidence of the relative distance between formants frequencies of both components.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.514-514
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• 1996

Igbo, a new Benue Congo language has a vowel harmony system which, like that of Akan, is based on the pharynx size or tongue root position. In this study we examine Igbo vowel harmony with particular reference to assimilatory patterns of vowels in different harmony sets. This is to gain some insight into the factors involved in Igbo vowel assimilation, and to establish to what extent reports on Akan vowel assimilation are validated in Igbo. Tokens of the eight phonemic vowels of Standard Igbo are recorded from three native speakers of Igbo. The vowels are acoustically investigated (using the LPC analysis of CSL) in individual lexical items and within carefully designed carrier phrases. The F1 and F2 values of the vowels are obtained as these formant values are generally useful in establishing the salient characteristics of vowels. Vowels from the harmony sets are juxtaposed in the carrier phrases to ascertain the extent of assimilation. Results of the investigation show that the F1 values, to a large extend, are enough to characterize these vowels. The (-Expanded) vowels have higher F1 values than their (+Expanded) counterpart. Where there is an overlap in F1 values for some vowels the F1 bandwidth values serve to distinguish between the vowels. The overlap often reported in Akan for /I/ and /e/ on the one hand and /${\mho}$/ and /o/ on the other is not validated in Igbo. While the F1 values for these pairs of vowels are quite similar for one of our speakers, there is an appreciable difference between the F1 values of these vowels for the other two speakers. There is however an overlap for /e/ and /o/ for one of the speakers. Assimilations are generally regressive across word boundaries. It is, however, necessary to point out that the general perceptual impression that one of the vowels completely assimilates to the other, is not borne out by our investigation. Most of our F1 and F2 values for the vowels in individual lexical items are altered in assimilations. This then suggests that assimilation involving these vowels is partial rather than complete. The emerging 'allophones' are acoustically similar to the (+Expanded) vowel involved in the assimilation, that is when vowels from different harmony sets are involved. We conclude that while assimilation of Igbo vowels involves some phonological considerations, phonetic factors appear to be permanent in deciding the final form of the vowels.

• 인지과학
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.1-11
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• 2004

본 연구는 만 12-35개월 아동들의 발화에 나타나는 모음 대치 현상에 대한 고찰을 통하여 아동의 모음 체계 구성과 그 변화 과정을 밝히고자 하였다. 또한, 자질별로 모음 대치 현상이 일어나는 비율과 해당 대치음에 대한 산출율을 비교함으로써 분절음 대치 현상과 음 산출 사이의 상관관계 및 분절음 대치 현상의 원인을 함께 검토하였다. 그 결과 혓몸 자질에 의한 모음 변별이 원순성 자질에 의한 모음 변별보다 앞서서 이루어지는 것으로 나타났고, 그 시기는 각각 24개월 무렵과 36개월 이후로 밝혀졌다. 또한 변별이 전혀 안 되던 상태에서 변별이 완전해지는 상태로 이행하는 시기에 두 음소 사이의 일방향적 대치가 두드러지는 현상이 나타나는데, 이러한 현상은 어떤 음이 아동의 음운 체계에서 하나의 음소로 자리 잡기 시작하는 때에 해당 음의 변별적 자질을 다른 음에 확대하는 과잉 적용 현상으로 해석된다.