• Title/Summary/Keyword: vowel variation

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Vowel Variation in PC Communication Language and Phonetic Similarity (통신언어의 모음변이와 음성학적 유사성)

  • Ji, Yunjoo;Kim, Ilkyu
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.133-138
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    • 2015
  • The purpose of this study is to provide deeper understanding of how it is possible for people to understand PC communication language they have never seen or heard before without any problem. In order to answer this question, we focused on the vowel variation through which new variants are created (for PC communication), and hypothesized that there is a phonetic constraint which requires the vowel of the variant to be phonetically similar (to the maximum) to the vowel of the original word. Through the corpus analysis of the dictionary of PC communication language, we show that our hypothesis is justified by the fact that most of the variants we collected from the dictionary, that is, 90% of them, conformed to the phonetic constraint we postulated.

The Vowel System of American English and Its Regional Variation (미국 영어 모음 체계의 몇 가지 지역 방언적 차이)

  • Oh, Eun-Jin
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.69-87
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    • 2006
  • This study aims to describe the vowel system of present-day American English and to discuss some of its phonetic variations due to regional differences. Fifteen speakers of American English from various regions of the United States produced the monophthongs of English. The vowel duration and the frequencies of the first and the second formant were measured. The results indicate that the distinction between the vowels [c] and [a] has been merged in most parts of the U.S. except in some speakers from eastern and southeastern parts of the U.S., resulting in the general loss of phonemic distinction between the vowels. The phonemic merger of the two vowels can be interpreted as the result of the relatively small functional load of the [c]-[a] contrast, and the smaller back vowel space in comparison to the front vowel space. The study also shows that the F2 frequencies of the high back vowel [u] were extremely high in most of the speakers from the eastern region of the U.S., resulting in the overall reduction of their acoustic space for high vowels. From the viewpoint of the Adaptive Dispersion Theory proposed by Liljencrants & Lindblom (1972) and Lindblom (1986), the high back vowel [u] appeared to have been fronted in order to satisfy the economy of articulatory gesture to some extent without blurring any contrast between [i] and [u] in the high vowel region.

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Measurement of the vocal tract area of vowels By MRI and their synthesis by area variation (MRI에 의한 모음의 성도 단면적 측정 및 면적 변이에 따른 합성 연구)

  • Yang, Byung-Gon
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.4 no.1
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    • pp.19-34
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    • 1998
  • The author collected and compared midsagittal, coronal, coronal oblique, and transversal images of Korean monophthongs /a, i, e, o, u, i, v/ produced by a healthy male speaker using 1.5 T MR, VISION. Area was measured by computer software after tracing the cross-section at different points along the tract. Results showed that the width of the oral and pharyngeal cavities varied compensatorily from each other on the midsagittal dimension. Formant frequency values estimated from the area functions of the seven vowels showed a strong correlation (r=0.978) with those analyzed from the spoken vowels. Moreover, almost all of 35 students who listened to the synthesized vowels from area data perceived the synthesized vowels as equivalent to the spoken ones. Movement of constriction points of vowel /u/ with wider lip opening sounded /i/ and led to slight changes in vowel quality. Jaw and tongue movement led to major volume variation with an anatomical limitation. Each comer vowel varied systematically from a somewhat constant volume of the average area. Thus, the author proposed that any simulation studies related to vocal tract area variation should reflect its constant volume. The results may be helpful to verify exact measurement of the vocal tract area through vowel synthesis and a simulation study before having any operation of the vocal tract.

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A Phonetic Study of Vowel Raising: A Closer Look at the Realization of the Suffix {-go} (모음 상승 현상의 음성적 고찰: 어미 {-고}의 실현을 중심으로)

  • LEE, HYANG WON;Shin, Jiyoung
    • Korean Linguistics
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    • v.81
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    • pp.267-297
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    • 2018
  • Vowel raising in Korean has been primarily treated as a phonological, categorical change. This study aims to show how the Korean connective suffix {-go} is realized in various environments, and propose a principle of vowel raising based on both acoustic and perceptual data. To that end, we used a corpus of spoken Korean to analyze the types of syntactic constructions, the realization of prosodic boundaries (IP and PP), and the types of boundary tone associated with {-go}. It was found that the vowel tends to be raised most frequently in utterance-final position, while in utterance-medial position the vowel was raised more when the syntactic and prosodic distance between {-go} and the following constituent was smaller. The results for boundary tone also showed a correlation between vowel raising and the discourse function of the boundary tone. In conclusion, we propose that vowel raising is not simply an optional phenomenon, but rather a type of phonetic reduction related to the comprehension of the following constituent.

Variation in vowel duration depending on voicing in American, British, and New Zealand English

  • Cho, Hyesun
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.11-20
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    • 2016
  • It is well known that vowels are shorter before voiceless consonants than voiced ones in English, as in many other languages. Research has shown that the ratio of vowel durations in voiced and voiceless contexts in English is in the range of 0.6~0.8. However, little work has been done as to whether the ratio of vowel durations varies depending on English variety. In the production experiment in this paper, seven speakers from three varieties of English, New Zealand, British, and American English, read 30 pairs of (C)VC monosyllabic words which differ in coda voicing (e.g. beat-bead). Vowel height, phonemic vowel length, and consonant manner were varied as well. As expected, vowel-shortening effects were found in all varieties: vowels were shorter before voiceless than before voiced codas. Overall vowel duration was the longest in American English and the shortest in New Zealand (NZ) English. In particular, vowel duration before voiceless codas is the shortest in New Zealand English, indicating the most radical degree of shortening in this variety. As a result, the ratio of vowel durations in varying voicing contexts is the lowest in NZ English, while American and British English do not show a significant difference each other. In addition, consonant closure duration was examined. Whereas NZ speakers show the shortest vowel duration before a voiceless coda, their voiceless consonants have the longest closure duration, which suggest an inverse relationship between vowel duration and closure duration.

A Link between Perceived and Produced Vowel Spaces of Korean Learners of English (한국인 영어학습자의 지각 모음공간과 발화 모음공간의 연계)

  • Yang, Byunggon
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.6 no.3
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    • pp.81-89
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    • 2014
  • Korean English learners tend to have difficulty perceiving and producing English vowels. The purpose of this study is to examine a link between perceived and produced vowel spaces of Korean learners of English. Sixteen Korean male and female participants perceived two sets of English synthetic vowels on a computer monitor and rated their naturalness. The same participants produced English vowels in a carrier sentence with high and low pitch variation in a clear speaking mode. The author compared the perceived and produced vowel spaces in terms of the pitch and gender variables. Results showed that the perceived vowel spaces were not significantly different in either variables. Korean learners perceived the vowels similarly. They did not differentiate the tense-lax vowel pairs nor the low vowels. Secondly, the produced vowel spaces of the male and female groups showed a 25% difference which may have come from their physiological differences in the vocal tract length. Thirdly, the comparison of the perceived and produced vowel spaces revealed that although the vowel space patterns of the Korean male and female learners appeared similar, which may lead to a relative link between perception and production, statistical differences existed in some vowels because of the acoustical properties of the synthetic vowels, which may lead to an independent link. The author concluded that any comparison between the perceived and produced vowel space of nonnative speakers should be made cautiously. Further studies would be desirable to examine how Koreans would perceive different sets of synthetic vowels.

Durational Interaction of Stops and Vowels in English and Korean Child-Directed Speech

  • Choi, Han-Sook
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.61-70
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    • 2012
  • The current study observes the durational interaction of tautosyllabic consonants and vowels in the word-initial position of English and Korean child-directed speech (CDS). The effect of phonological laryngeal contrasts in stops on the following vowel duration, and the effect of the intrinsic vowel duration on the release duration of preceding stops in addition to the acoustic realization of the contrastive segments are explored in different prosodic contexts - phrase-initial/medial, focal accented/non-focused - in a marked speech style of CDS. A trade-off relationship between Voice Onset Time (VOT), as consonant release duration, and voicing phonation time, as vowel duration, reported from adult-to-adult speech, and patterns of durational variability are investigated in CDS of two languages with different linguistic rhythms, under systematically controlled prosodic contexts. Speech data were collected from four native English mothers and four native Korean mothers who were talking to their one-word staged infants. In addition to the acoustic measurements, the transformed delta measure is employed as a variability index of individual tokens. Results confirm the durational correlation between prevocalic consonants and following vowels. The interaction is revealed in a compensatory pattern such as longer VOTs followed by shorter vowel durations in both languages. An asymmetry is found in CV interaction in that the effect of consonant on vowel duration is greater than the VOT differences induced by the vowel. Prosodic effects are found such that the acoustic difference is enhanced between the contrastive segments under focal accent, supporting the paradigmatic strengthening effect. Positional variation, however, does not show any systematic effects on the variations of the measured acoustic quantities. Overall vowel duration and syllable duration are longer in English tokens but involve less variability across the prosodic variations. The constancy of syllable duration, therefore, is not found to be more strongly sustained in Korean CDS. The stylistic variation is discussed in relation to the listener under linguistic development in CDS.

Acoustic Measurement of English read speech by native and nonnative speakers

  • Choi, Han-Sook
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.3 no.3
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    • pp.77-88
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    • 2011
  • Foreign accent in second language production depends heavily on the transfer of features from the first language. This study examines acoustic variations in segments and suprasegments by native and nonnative speakers of English, searching for patterns of the transfer and plausible indexes of foreign accent in English. The acoustic variations are analyzed with recorded read speech by 20 native English speakers and 50 Korean learners of English, in terms of vowel formants, vowel duration, and syllabic variation induced by stress. The results show that the acoustic measurements of vowel formants and vowel and syllable durations display difference between native speakers and nonnative speakers. The difference is robust in the production of lax vowels, diphthongs, and stressed syllables, namely the English-specific features. L1 transfer on L2 specification is found both at the segmental levels and at the suprasegmental levels. The transfer levels measured as groups and individuals further show a continuum of divergence from the native-like target. Overall, the eldest group, students who are in the graduate schools, shows more native-like patterns, suggesting weaker foreign accent in English, whereas the high school students tend to involve larger deviation from the native speakers' patterns. Individual results show interdependence between segmental transfer and prosodic transfer, and correlation with self-reported proficiency levels. Additionally, experience factors in English such as length of English study and length of residence in English speaking countries are further discussed as factors to explain the acoustic variation.

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Effects of Vowel Differences on Laryngeal DDK (모음에 따른 후두 교호운동 특성)

  • Han, Ji-Yeon;Lee, Ok-Bun
    • MALSORI
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    • v.68
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    • pp.1-15
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    • 2008
  • This study investigated the vowel effect on laryngeal DDK (L-DDK) in terms of rate, regularity, and range. Thirteen normal speakers participated in this experiment. Speakers were asked to repeat the vowels /a, e, i, o, u/ for vocal fold adduction DDK, and /ha, he, hi, ho, hul for vocal fold abduction DDK. Acoustic data was analyzed via Motor Speech Profile. There were 6 parameters: DDKavp and DDKavr for rate of L-DDK, DDKcvp and DDKjit for regulariry of L-DDK, and DDKavi and DDKcvi for range of L-DDK. Results of MANOVA and Fredman analysis showed no significant vowel effect on rate and regularity of L-DDK. MANOVA revealed significant effects of vowels and vocal fold ab/adduction on range of L-DDK. DDK peak intensity (DDKavi) in vowel /i/ production was lower than in vowels /a, e, o, u/. Variation of DDK peak intensity (DDKcvi) was significantly greater for /ha/ than for /a/ production. The implication of these findings on voice and speech pathology is discussed.

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Acoustic, Intraoral Air Pressure and EMG Studies of Vowel Devoicing in Korean

  • Kim, Hyun-Gi;Niimi, Sei-Ji
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.3-13
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    • 2003
  • The devoicing vowel is a phonological process whose contrast in sonority is lost or reduces in a particular phonetic environment. Phonetically, the vocal fold vibration originates from the abduction/adduction of the glottis in relation to supraglottal articulatory movements. The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean vowel devoicing by means of experimental instruments. The interrelated laryngeal adjustments and aerodynamic effects for this voicing can clarify the redundant articulatory gestures relevant to the distinctive feature of sonority. Five test words were selected, being composed of the high vowel /i/, between the fricative and strong aspirated or lenis affricated consonants. The subjects uttered the test words successively at a normal or at a faster speed. The EMG, the sensing tube Gaeltec S7b and the High-Speech Analysis system and MSL II were used in these studies. Acoustically, three different types of speech waveforms and spectrograms were classified, based on the voicing variation. The intraoral air pressure curves showed differences, depending on the voicing variations. The activity patterns of the PCA and the CT for devoicing vowels appeared differently from those showing the partially devoicing vowels and the voicing vowels.

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