• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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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.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.391-417
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• 2017

Southeast Asian languages are famous for having a large number of vowel sounds with an average of more than 20 vowel sounds in this certain language family. In addition, there are approximately 1,500 languages in this area, which accounts for approximately 20% of total languages in the world. For this reason, vowel systems of Southeast Asian languages should be explored to determine the nature of vowel structures of human natural languages. In this study, we analyze vowel systems of three languages, Tagalog, Malay and Thai, that have only primary or normal vowels and thus are relatively simple structures based on descriptive and analytic universals. We would also like to confirm if the six criteria of the tentative evaluation model taken from several previous literature is appropriate in applying analysis of vowel system universals under the method of the Greenbergian Universals or statistic universals. What we have found from this research are (i) the three languages have high level of universals with some exceptional cases such as three-vowel system of Tagalog, and (ii) some of the six criteria, together with some cases of analytic universals, are not quite suitable for understanding language-specific universals that are different from other languages.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.559-602
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• 2010

This study examines the concepts and functional characteristics of consciousness in comparison of memory and attention from the perspective of information processing. It also provides an understanding of the relationships between the three as hypothetical constructs. Consciousness is regarded as too ambiguous a concept to be understood and accepted as a mental construct without the inclusion of memory and attention in any conceptualization. We need one criterion to count satisfactorily as an explanation of consciousness in information processing. Consciousness would be a subjective awareness of momentary experience and also have the characteristic of an operating system performing control and consolidation in information processing. This could be called cognitive consciousness which refers to a subjective awareness and an executive control system, even though those are not equivalent concepts. Consciousness, memory and attention, three mental constructs could operate dependently or independently depending on the specific tasks conditioned in many information processing levels whose modules with three mental constructs could operate in hierarchy. In this premise, working memory could not be a unitary system, contrary to those of Baddeley and Hitch(1974) and Baddeley(1992, 2000), just being a mental workplace consisting of two components: the phonological loop, and the visual-spatial sketchpad without the episodic buffer and a central executive which are the characteristics of consciousness. In the continuum of information processing, the conscious processes and the unconscious processes seem not to be totally different and contrasting processes.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.25-54
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• 2020

While there is no evidence for parafoveal processing in alphabetic languages such as English and Finnish, there is some evidence that morphological information is processed in syllabic languages like Chinese. Korean writing system, Hangul, would be able to provide morphological preview benefit effects since it is an "alphabetic syllabary" which contains both alphabetic and syllabic features. This study explored morphological parafoveal preview benefit effects during reading Korean using irregular verbs, which have phonological and orthographical differences between fundamental and conjugated forms. In the Experiment, the target word was irregular conjugated form, and there were four preview conditions: identical (e.g. 구워), fundamental form (e.g. 굽다), orthographically related (e.g. 굼다), and unrelated control (e.g. 죨어). In the result of study, identical was shortest and morphological, orthographical, unrelated preview were followed. Moreover, measures of first-pass reading of morphological preview were significantly shorter than those of unrelated control preview. This results support the hypothesis of morphological preview benefit effects in Korean. The implications of the results are discussed.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.693-706
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• 2015

A shift of first fowering date (FFD) of spring blossoms (cherry, peach and pear) over the northest Asia under global warming is investiaged using dynamically downscaled daily temperature data with 12.5 km resolution. For the study, we obatained gridded daily data with Historical (1981~2010), and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) (2021~2100) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios which were produced by WRFv3.4 in conjunction with HadGEM2-AO. A change on FFDs in 21st century is estimated by applying daily outputs of WRFv3.4 to DTS phonological model. Prior to projection on future climate, the performances of both WRFv3.4 and DTS models are evaluated using spatial distribution of climatology and SCR diagram (Normalized standard deviation-Pattern correlation coefficient-Root mean square difference). According to the result, WRFv3.4 and DTS models well simulated a feature of the terrain following characteristics and a general pattern of observation with a marigin of $1.4^{\circ}C$ and 5~6 days. The analysis reveals a projected advance in FFDs of cherry, peach and pear over the northeast Asia by 2100 of 15.4 days (9.4 days). 16.9 days (10.4 days) and 15.2 days (9.5 days), respectively, compared to the Historical simulation due to a increasing early spring (Februrary to April) temperature of about $4.9^{\circ}C$ ($2.9^{\circ}C$) under the RCP 8.5 (RCP 4.5) scenarios. This indicates that the current flowering of the cherry, peach and pear over analysis area in middle or end of April is expected to start blooming in early or middle of April, at the end of this century. The present study shows the dynamically downscaled daily data with high-resolution is helpeful in offering various useful information to end-users as well as in understanding regional climate change.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2011

Brand names are often considered as a part of product and important extrinsic cues of product evaluation, when consumers make purchasing decisions. For a company, brand names are also important assets. Building a strong brand name in the Chinese commonwealth is a main challenge for many global companies. One of the first problem global company has to face is how to translate English brand name into Chinese brand name. It is very difficult decision because of cultural and linguistic differences. Western languages are based on an alphabet phonetic system, whereas Chinese are based on ideogram. Chinese speakers are more likely to recall stimuli presented as brand names in visual rather than spoken recall, whereas English speakers are more likely to recall the names in spoken rather than in visual recall. We interpret these findings in terms of the fact that mental representations of verbal information in Chinese are coded primarily in a visual manner, whereas verbal information in English is coded by primarily in a phonological manner. A key linguistic differences that would affect the decision to standardize or localize when transferring English brand name to Chinese brand name is the writing system. Prior Chinese brand naming research suggests that popular Chinese naming translations foreign companies adopt are phonetic, semantic, and phonosemantic translation. The phonetic translation refers to the speech sound that is produced, such as the pronunciation of the brand name. The semantic translation involves the actual meaning of and association made with the brand name. The phonosemantic translation preserves the sound of the brand name and brand meaning. Prior brand naming research has dealt with word-level analysis in examining English brand name that are desirable for improving memorability. We predict Chinese brand name suggestiveness with different translation methods lead to different levels of consumers' evaluations. This research investigates the structural linguistic characteristics of the Chinese language and its impact on the brand name evaluation. Otherwise purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand concept on the evaluation of brand name. We also want to examine whether the evaluation is moderated by Chinese translation types. 178 Taiwanese participants were recruited for the research. The following findings are from the empirical analysis on the hypotheses established in this study. In the functional brand concept, participants in Chinese translation by semantic were likely to evaluate positively than Chinese translation by phonetic. On the contrary, in the symbolic brand concept condition, participants in Chinese translation by phonetic evaluated positively than by semantic. And then, we found Chinese translation by phonosemantic was most favorable evaluations regardless of brand concept. The implications of these findings are discussed for Chinese commonwealth marketers with respect to brand name strategies. The proposed model helps companies to effectively select brand name, making it highly applicable for academia and practitioner. name and brand meaning. Prior brand naming research has dealt with word-level analysis in examining English brand name that are desirable for improving memorability. We predict Chinese brand name suggestiveness with different translation methods lead to different levels of consumers' evaluations. This research investigates the structural linguistic characteristics of the Chinese language and its impact on the brand name evaluation. Otherwise purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand concept on the evaluation of brand name. We also want to examine whether the evaluation is moderated by Chinese translation types. 178 Taiwanese participants were recruited for the research. The following findings are from the empirical analysis on the hypotheses established in this study. In the functional brand concept, participants in Chinese translation by semantic were likely to evaluate positively than Chinese translation by phonetic. On the contrary, in the symbolic brand concept condition, participants in Chinese translation by phonetic evaluated positively than by semantic. And then, we found Chinese translation by phonosemantic was most favorable evaluations regardless of brand concept. The implications of these findings are discussed for Chinese commonwealth marketers with respect to brand name strategies. The proposed model helps companies to effectively select brand name, making it highly applicable for academia and practitioner.