• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.39-49
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese speakers realize Korean intonation phrase (IP) boundary tones in the reading of a Korean text. Korean IP boundary tones play various roles in speech communication. They indicate prosodic constituents' boundaries while simultaneously performing pragmatic and grammatical functions. In order to express and understand Korean utterances correctly, it is necessary to understand the Korean IP boundary tone system. To investigate the IP boundary tone produced by Chinese speakers, we have specifically examined the type of boundary tones, the degree of internal pitch modulation of boundary tones, and the pitch difference between penultimate syllables and boundary tones. The results of each analysis were compared to the IP boundary tones produced by Korean native speakers. The results show that IP boundary tones were realized higher than penultimate syllables.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.109-129
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• 1999

A study of boundary tones, which are realized at the final syllable of an Intonational Phrase, is important in that sentential meaning is often differentiated solely by the use of different boundary tones in Korean. The purposes of this paper are three-fold: Firstly, it aims at finding out the different characteristics of boundary tones between designed corpus and natural speech. Secondly, it is to show that gender and dialectal differences are crucial factors in determining different realizations of boundary tones. Finally, this study is to provide a basis for better speech synthesis and speech recognition through the analysis of the morphemes where boundary tones are realized. This study has shown that nine different kinds of boundary tones are realized based on the contextual, gender and dialectal differences. In addition to the boundary tones suggested in Jun (1993), three more boundary toes are introduced: L-%,H-%,LHLH%.

• 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.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.219-234
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• 2000

The study of boundary tones in connected speech or dialogues is one of the most underdeveloped areas of Korean prosody. This. paper concerns the boundary tones of intonational phrase-final morphemes which are shown in the speech corpus of dialogues. Results of phonetic analysis show that different kinds of boundary tones are realized, depending on the positions of the intonational phrase-final morphemes in the sentences.. This study has also shown that boundary tone patterning is somewhat related to the sentence structure, and for better speech recognition and speech synthesis, it presents a simple model of boundary tones based on the fundamental frequency contour. The results of this study will contribute to our understanding of the prosodic pattern of Korean connected speech or dialogues.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.31-38
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• 2016

The purpose of the current study was to examine the acquisition of the second language prosody by Korean learners of English. Specifically, this study investigated Korean learners' patterns of prosodic phrasing and their use of edge tones (i.e., phrase accents and boundary tones) in English, and then compared the patterns with those of native English speakers. Eight Korean learners and 8 native speakers of English read 5 different English passages. Both groups' patterns of tones and prosodic phrasing were analyzed using the Mainstream American English Tones and Break Indices (MAE_ToBI) transcription conventions. The results indicated that the Korean learners chunked their speech into prosodic phrases more frequently than the native speakers did. This frequent prosodic phrasing pattern was especially noticeable in sentence-internal prosodic phrases, often where there was no punctuation mark. Tonal analyses revealed that the Korean learners put significantly more High phrase accents (H-) on their sentence-internal intermediate phrase boundaries than the native speakers of English. In addition, compared with the native speakers, the Korean learners used significantly more High boundary tones (both H-H% and L-H%) for the sentence-internal intonational phrases, while they used similar proportion of High boundary tones for the sentence-final intonational phrases. Overall, the results suggested that Korean learners of English successfully acquired the meanings and functions of prosodic phrasing and edge tones in English as well as that they are able to efficiently use these prosodic features to convey their own discourse intention.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.141-152
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• 2005

This paper shows the tonal patterns of English conjunctive utterances produced by Korean speakers of English, presenting that Korean speakers realize either the H - phrase tone or the H% boundary tone at the phrase-final part of the conjunctive utterances. Based on Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg's (1990) claim that either H- or H% tone indicates that a phrase is related to the following one, Korean speakers seem to produce the satisfactory patterns of edge tones in conjunctive sentences. In the experiment, we made up conjunctive sentences including both coordinate conjunctions such as and, but, or, and so and subordinate conjunctions like if, when and though. We varied the stimuli according to the existence of a comma and the lengths of connecting words and phrases. We also divided the subjects into two levels of English proficiency based on their English written test scores to see if Korean speakers' performance ability of edge tones is related with their general competence of English. Results show that Korean speakers produced 84% of the H- phrase tone in intermediate phrases and H-L% and L-H% boundary tones in intonational phrases. Also, coordinate and subordinate conjunctions show little difference in their tonal contours, and the existence of a comma or the lengths of connecting words and phrases do not affect Korean speakers' production of the H- phrasal tone and the H% boundary tone. This may suggest that pitch accents, rather than edge tones, should be put more focus on in teaching English intonation in Korea as much work has already shown that Korean speakers have serious problem with producing pitch accents in speaking English.

• MALSORI
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• no.49
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• pp.51-61
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• 2004

This study compared pitch range, total duration of utterances, pause, boundary tones and mean duration of intonation final syllables of 4 sentences produced by 5 transgenders (male to female) to those of twenty normal adults. Voice analysis was performed by Praat (version 4.049). The results showed that there were differences in pitch range, total duration of utterances, pause, boundary tones and mean duration of intonation final syllables among the 3 groups(transgenders, normal males and normal females).

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.115-119
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• 2003

This study compared pitch range, speech rate, pause, intonation type and boundary tones of four sentences produced by five transgenders (male to female) to those of twenty normal adults. Voice analysis was done by Praat (version 4.049). Results indicated that there was a difference in pitch range, speech rate, pause, intonation type and boundary tones among the 3 groups(transgenders, normal males and normal females). Especially, transgenders indicated boundary tones more frequently than normal adults.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.97-112
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• 2000

This study examines how both English native speakers and Korean speakers realize the intonational tunes of English sentences when a sentence has two different meanings, through comparison of the utterances of the two groups of speakers. The results indicate that the English native speakers realize the difference in the meanings of given sentences in terms of differences in the boundary tones, as predicted in Pierrehumbert(1980) and Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg(l990), according to whom intonation is composed of a series of pitch accents, phrase tones, and boundary tones, and the meaning of a given sentence is delivered by the composition of the individual meanings of each component. The Korean speakers, however, fail to realize the difference in meaning with its boundary tones. Rather, they realize it by the number or positions of pitch accents and paralinguistic cues such as emotions and gestures. The Korean speakers, unlike the Americans, emphasize subject in sentences.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.193-196
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to find boundary tone's characteristics in Korean emotion speeches. I mainly focus on investigating patterns and f0 values of boundary tones and f0 values in utterance final phrases.