• 음성과학
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• 제5권2호
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• pp.41-55
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• 1999

This paper aims to acoustically analyze the merger of back vowels in North Korean dialects which I believe, are here investigated for the first time since 1945. North Korean back vowels are distinctive from South Korean back vowels because they merge mainly on the back vowel space, while front vowels merge mainly in Seoul standard language and other South Korean dialects. In this paper the future of the vowel systems caused by the merger of the vowels in Korean dialects will also be investigated. North Korean dialects examined include dialects of the Pyungan, the Hamkyung, and the Hwanghae Provinces. North Korean back vowels are distinctive from South Korean back vowels because they merge mainly on the back vowel space, while front vowels merge mainly in Seoul standard language and other South Korean dialects.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.207-207
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• 1996

The neutral tone is one of the most important distinguishing features in Beijing Mandarin, but there are two completely different views on its linguistic function: a special tone(Xu, 1980) versus weak stress(Chao, 1968). In this paper, the acoustic manifestation of the neutral tone will be explored to show that it is closely related to weak stress. 122 disyllabic words in which the second syllable carries the neutral tone, including 22 stress pairs, were uttered by a native male speaker of Beijing dialect and analysed by Kay Digital Sonagraph 5500-1. The results of the acoustic analysis are presented as follows: 1) The first two formants of the medial and the syllabic vowel moves towards that of central vowel with a greater magnitude in the syllable with the neutral tone than in the syllable with any of the four normal tones. Also the vowel ending, and nasal coda /n/ and / / in the syllable with the neutral tone tends to be deleted. 2) In the syllables with the neutral tone, there are strong carryover coarticulations between the medial and syllabic vowel and the preceding unvoiced consonant. In general, the vowel is affected to move towards the position of the central vowel with more greater magnitude by coronal consonant than by labial or velar consonant. 3) In the syllable with the neutral tone, when and only when it precedes a syllable with tone-4, the high vowel following [f], [ts'], [s], [ts'], [s], [tc'] or [c] tends to be voiceless. 4) It can be seen from the acoustical results of 22 stress pairs that the duration of the syllable with the neutral tone is on the average reduced to 55% of that of the syllable with the four normal tones, and the duration of the final in the syllable with neutral tone is on the average reduced to 45% of that of the final in the syllable with the four normal tones(Lin & Yan 1980). 5) The FO contour of the neutral tone is highly dependent on the preceding normal tone(Lin & Yan 1993). For a number of languages it has been found that the vowel space is reduced as the level of stress placed upon the vowel is reduced(Nord 1986). Therefore we reach the conclusion that the syllable with neutral tone is related to weak stress(Lin & Yan 1990). The neutral tone is not a special tone because the preceding normal tone.

• The Journal of Advanced Prosthodontics
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.71-76
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• 2010

PURPOSE. The purpose of this study was to compare men with women in terms of speech intelligibility, to investigate the validity of objective acoustic parameters related with speech intelligibility, and to try to set up the standard data for the future study in various field in prosthodontics. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Twenty men and women were served as subjects in the present study. After recording of sample sounds, speech intelligibility tests by three speech pathologists and acoustic analyses were performed. Comparison of the speech intelligibility test scores and acoustic parameters such as fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency range, formant frequency, formant ranges, vowel working space area, and vowel dispersion were done between men and women. In addition, the correlations between the speech intelligibility values and acoustic variables were analyzed. RESULTS. Women showed significantly higher speech intelligibility scores than men and there were significant difference between men and women in most of acoustic parameters used in the present study. However, the correlations between the speech intelligibility scores and acoustic parameters were low. CONCLUSION. Speech intelligibility test and acoustic parameters used in the present study were effective in differentiating male voice from female voice and their values might be used in the future studies related patients involved with maxillofacial prosthodontics. However, further studies are needed on the correlation between speech intelligibility tests and objective acoustic parameters.

• 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.

• 대한한방내과학회지
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.413-420
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• 2008

Objective : To investigate the therapeutic effect of scalp acupuncture on dysarthria after stroke. Methods : A-B model in single subject research. The experimental group of 7 members received scalp acupuncture and the control group of 5 nothing for dysarthria itself. Five single vowels were recorded by voice recorder and measured for 1st & 2nd formant. By the formants, a vowel space was made according to each one of the patients. Praat program was used for evaluation. Results : 4 cases in the experimental group showed significant change and just 1 case of the none-operated group got better. Conclusion : In this study, it's proven that acupuncture treatment might have positive efficacy on dysarthria cases. At this moment, more clinical reports are needed for objective oriental medical study.

• 대한음성학회지:말소리
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• 제62호
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• pp.1-17
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate and quantitatively describe the acoustic characteristics of current Korean monophthongs. Recordings were made of 33 men and 27 women producing the vowels /i, e, ${\epsilon}$, a, ${\partial}$, o, u, i/ in a carrier phrase "This character is ___." A listening test was conducted in which 19 participants judged each vowel. F1, F2, and F3 were measured from the vowels judged as intended vowels by more than 17 people from the listening test. Analysis of formant data shows some interesting results including the undeniable confirmation of the 7-vowel system in modern Korean. It turns out that quite different sounding Korean vowels and English vowels happen to have very similar formant measurements. Also the difference between "citation-form reading" vs. "natural utterance reading" is discussed.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제5권2호
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• pp.53-58
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to compare the first two vowel formants of the stressed and unstressed English vowels produced by ten young males (in their twenties and thirties) and ten old males (in their forties or fifties) from the Buckeye Corpus of Conversational Speech. The results indicate that the stressed and unstressed vowels, /i/ and $/{\ae}/$ in particular, from the two groups are different in their formant frequencies. In addition, the vowel space of the unstressed vowels is somewhat smaller than that of the stressed vowels. Specifically, the range of the second formant of the unstressed vowels and that of the first formant of the unstressed front vowels were compressed. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation training for the Korean learners of English vowels. We propose that teachers of English pay attention to the stress patterns of English vowels as well as their formant frequencies.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.15-20
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• 2021

In line with recent attention to the multimodal expression of politeness, the present study examined the association between polite speech and acoustic features through the analysis of vowels produced in casual and polite speech contexts in Korean. Fourteen adult native speakers of Seoul Korean produced the utterances in two social conditions to elicit polite (professor) and casual (friend) speech. Vowel duration and the first (F1) and second formants (F2) of seven sentence- and phrase-initial monophthongs were measured. The results showed that polite speech shares acoustic similarities with vowel production in clear speech: speakers showed greater vowel space expansion in polite than casual speech in an effort to enhance perceptual intelligibility. Especially, female speakers hyperarticulated (front) vowels for polite speech, independent of speech rate. The implications for the acoustic encoding of social stance in polite speech are further discussed.

• 한국음향학회지
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• 제11권1호
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• pp.35-41
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• 1992

지속적으로 발성한 모음에 대해 각 화자의 특징을 나타내는 벡터양자화 코드북을 만들고 이를 이용해 화자를 인식하는 방법을 제안하고 실험하였다. 특히 벡터로는 모음 /이/로 부터 각각의 피치 주기에 대해 얻어진 선형예측계수를 사용하였으며, 코드북의 크기는 4가 적절함을 실험적으로 보였다. 인식실험에서, 학습에 사용된 데이타를 이용했을 경우에는 99.4%의 인식율을 보였으며, 학습에 사용되지 않은 50개의 피치 주기를 포함하는 음성신호로 부터는 89.4%의 인식율을 보였다.

• 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.