• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.181-195
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• 1999

This study proposes a method of recognizing postpositions and suffixes in Korean spoken language, using prosodic information. We detect grammatical boundaries automatically at first, by using prosodic information of the accentual phrase, and then we recognize grammatical function words by backward-tracking from the boundaries. The experiment employs 300 sentential speech data of 10 men's and 5 women's voice spoken in standard Korean, in which 1080 accentual phrases and 11 postpositions and suffixes are included. The result shows the recognition rate of postpositions in two cases. In one case in which only correctly detected boundaries are included, the recognition rate is 97.5%, and in the other case in which all detected boundaries are included, the recognition rate is 74.8%.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 2011

This experimental study has a goal to explore the perceptual sensitivity to phonetic evidence such as duration, phrase accent, or pause in disambiguation. We argue that the realization of the intonational phrasal boundary at the meaningful grammatical boundary in structurally ambiguous sentences facilitates English native listeners to distinguish the meanings of the ambiguous sentences. Moreover, the duration of the phrase-final syllable, pitch range reset, or phrasal tones also provides listeners with important phonetic evidence in disambiguation. In our perception experiment, however, Korean English learners largely depend on the realization of pause. In the results from the perception experiment, all of the groups showed an increase in the response time from the perception of no pause to pause realization. This means that pause at the phonological phrasal boundary plays a role of facilitator to English native speakers with other prosodic cues such as duration, pitch accent, or phrasal tones, while an absolutely important cue to Korean English learners.

• MALSORI
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• no.31_32
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• pp.195-205
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• 1996

The aim of this paper is to describe the prosodic structure of Korean related to the syllable duration varying with its positional difference. An attempt is made in this study to analyze and describe the concrete correlation between the syllable lengthening and its position in the utterance at the initial and final positions. Using the syllable [na] at the final and initial position of a prosodic phrase in the Korean version of 'the North Wind and the Sun', it has found that the ratio of phrase final versus phrase initial syllable lengthening was approximately 1.8:1 for 4 subjects taking part in the test. In the case of nonsense data, we found that the ratio was approximately 1.6:1 for 2 out of 3 subjects. The results of this study might indicate that Korean tends to have a high rate of final lengthening. We can tentatively classify it, therefore, as a stress-timed language. Still, there is no denying that further studies should be done before we can be absolutely certain about the classification of languages along the dichotomy scale.

• MALSORI
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• no.47
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• pp.15-29
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• 2003

When intonation in French is analysed in terms of a multi-dimentional and hierarchical structure, each of the prosodic units such as accent phrases(having different combinations of the basic tonemes L and H), pre-sentencial and post-sentencial long pauses, intonation phrases(containing boundary intonation), as well as intermediate phrases can be considered being realized on a separate tier. Unlike on the tiers where accent phrases and intonation phrases occur, an intonation rhythm consisting of plateaus is realised on that of intermediate phrases. This intonation rhythm consisting of plateaus is one of the significant factors that lead a basic French metrical rhythm. This paper first shows the types of combinations of the basic tonemes L and H found in French accent phrases. Secondly, this paper examines the roles intermediate phrases and plateaus play in French. Finally, this paper argues that intermediate phrases are the metrical units actually adopted as real utterance units in French.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.67-75
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• 2011

In Korean, 'Aspiration Merger' is the result of the heteromorphemic sequence of lenis stop and /h/ becoming a single aspirated stop word-medially. However, the contrast between lenis stop-plus-/h/ and an underlying aspirated stop is maintained when they span Phonological Phrase boundaries. By varying the position in the prosodic domain such as APP (Across Phonological Phrase) and PPM (Phonological Phrase Medial) positions, the phonetic properties of the two categories are compared. In the results from noise duration and change of intensity, lenis stop-plus-/h/ show a large difference between the APP and PPM positions. The results from a noise duration comparison show that the two categories are completely neutralized into aspirated stop in the PPM position and the complete neutralization is sensitive to prosodic phrasing.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.209-224
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• 2000

This paper proposes an automatic detection method of intonational and accentual phrases in Korean standard continuous speech. We use the pause over 150 msec for detecting intonational phrases, and extract accentual phrases from the intonational phrases by analyzing syllables and pitch contours. The speech data for the experiment are composed of seven male voices and two female voices which read the texts of the fable 'the ant and the grasshopper' and a newspaper article 'manmulsang' in normal speed and in Korean standard variation. The results of the experiment shows that the detection rate of intonational phrases is 95% on the average and that of accentual phrases is 73%. This detection rate implies that we can segment the continuous speech into smaller units(i.e. prosodic phrases) by using the prosodic information and so the objects of speech recognition can narrow down to words or phrases in continuous speech.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.85-91
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to investigate phonetic realization of flap [r], one of the allophones of Korean /l/. Phonetic realization of a segment is affected by not only its neighboring segments but also its prosodic position in an utterance. This study examined how various prosodic positions affect the phonetic realization of [r]. Effects of the four prosodic positions on the phonetic realization of [r] were examined: utterance initial, Intonation Phrase initial, Accentual Phrase initial, and Accentual Medial positions. Word positional effect was also examined: word initial, medial, and final positions. Acoustic and statistical analyses showed that flap [r] was realized in a variety of phonetic forms: from sonorant(the most reduced form) to short stop(the least reduced form). It was shown that generally. word-initial position is stronger than word-medial position. It was also shown that in many cases, utterance-initial position and intonation-phrase-initial position are stronger than accentual-phrase-initial and accentual-phrase-medial positions. Sonorants were observed more often in the prosodically weaker portions. VOT duration was also shorter in accentual-phrase-initial and accentual-phrase-medial positions.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.9-17
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• 2017

The aim of this study is to examine whether Chinese Korean learners (CKL) can correctly produce the aspiration in 'a lenis obstruents /k/, /t/, /p/, /ʧ/+/h/ sound' sequence at the lexical and post-lexical level. For this purpose 4 Korean native speakers (KNS), 10 advanced and 10 intermediate CKL participated in a production test. The material analyzed consisted of 10 Korean sentences in which aspiration can be applied at different prosodic boundaries (syllable, word, accentual phrase). The results showed that for KNS and CKL, the rate of application of aspiration was different according to prosodic boundaries. Aspiration was more frequently applied at the lexical level than at the post-lexical level and it was more frequent at the word boundary than at the accentual phrase boundary. For CKL, pronunciation errors were either non-application of aspiration or coda obstruent omission. In the case of non-application of aspiration, CKL produced the target syllable as an underling form and they did not transform it as a surface form. In the case of coda obstruent ommision, most of the errors were caused by the inherent complexity of phonological process.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.91-94
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• 2007

This paper aims to analyze the pronunciation of Korean Point-of-Interest (POI) data, which consist of 224 sound files, from the phonological point of view, adapting the notion of prosodic word within the framework of Intonational Phonology. Each POI word is broken down into prosodic words, which are defined as the minimal sequence of segments which can be produced as one Accentual Phrase (AP). Then the pronunciation of the POI word considering its prosodic words are analyzed. The results show that: in most cases, a prosodic word is realized as one AP; that, in some cases, two prosodic words are pronounced as one AP: and that no cases are found where 3 prosodic words are realized as one AP.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.47-55
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• 2020

The current study was designed to investigate which type of phrase boundary tones high-intermediate Korean learners of English used in their spontaneous speech. These boundary tones were compared to those used in native speakers' spontaneous speech to examine whether the learners successfully acquired the use of boundary tones. To achieve this purpose, 10 Korean learners of English and four native speakers of English participated in the current study. The participants were asked to summarize the stories of short videos, and the tonal and the phrasing patterns of the obtained spontaneous speech were analyzed using Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) transcription conventions. The results indicated that both the native speakers and the Korean learners frequently marked their intonational phrase boundaries with high boundary tones. However, regarding the prosodic phrase positions within a sentence, Korean learners frequently used steep rising tones (i.e., H-H%) while native speakers used gradual rising tones (i.e., L-H%) for sentence-final intonational phrases. Overall, the findings suggested that high-intermediate Korean learners understood the forward-looking function of the high boundary tones and that they were able to make use of these tones to mark intonational phrases in their spontaneous speech.