Reanalysis of Vowel Formants in the Buckeye Corpus

Weonhee Yun(윤원희) 언어과학회 2020 언어과학연구 Vol.0 No.93

Vowel formants are an important piece of information for mapping acoustic signals to a specific position in a vowel space defined by cardinal vowels. Each formant of a vowel can be obtained by averaging multiple formant values calculated from sliding analysis windows applied over the signals in the vowel area or simply by taking the formant value at a time point. Depending on which part of the vowel span is used, the formant values can change and as a result its position in the vowel space can also change. Vowels in a large corpus of spontaneous speech can be affected by various uncontrolled factors, which brings about large deviations in formants. In particular, when averaging multiple values from a token, the internal variation in each vowel token is easily ignored. This paper shows that internal variations can affect the final results of the vowel formants that represent a specific vowel type. This is particularly the case with the first formant of non-low vowels which tends to be more affected than with low vowels.

Reanalysis of Vowel Formants in the Buckeye Corpus

윤원희 언어과학회 2020 언어과학연구 Vol.0 No.93

Vowel formants are an important piece of information for mapping acoustic signals to a specific position in a vowel space defined by cardinal vowels. Each formant of a vowel can be obtained by averaging multiple formant values calculated from sliding analysis windows applied over the signals in the vowel area or simply by taking the formant value at a time point. Depending on which part of the vowel span is used, the formant values can change and as a result its position in the vowel space can also change. Vowels in a large corpus of spontaneous speech can be affected by various uncontrolled factors, which brings about large deviations in formants. In particular, when averaging multiple values from a token, the internal variation in each vowel token is easily ignored. This paper shows that internal variations can affect the final results of the vowel formants that represent a specific vowel type. This is particularly the case with the first formant of non-low vowels which tends to be more affected than with low vowels.

hVda 환경에서 한국어 학습자가 발화한 단모음의 포먼트 궤적 연구 : 중국인 여성 초급 학습자를 중심으로

손상미(Shon Sang Mi) 학습자중심교과교육학회 2022 학습자중심교과교육연구 Vol.22 No.3

목적 본 연구는 중국인 학습자들이 발화한 한국어 단모음의 동적 변화를 찾는 데 그 목적이 있다. 이를 통해 중국인 학습자들이 한국어 단모음을 발음할 때 일으키는 오류의 특징을 분석하고 한국어 발음을 지도하는 데에 기초자료로 활용할 수 있다. 방법 이를 위해서 서울 소재 대학 언어 교육원에서 한국어 2급을 공부하고 있는 중국인 여성 학습자 5명과 서울 및 경기 지역에서 출생⋅성장한 여성 한국인 모어 화자 5명이 hVda 환경에서 발화한 단모음의 포먼트 궤적을 구하여 비교⋅대조하였다. 먼저 hVda로 구성된 실험 자료를 녹음하여 음성 분석 프로그램인 Praat에서 선후행하는 자음을 제거하고 단모음만을 추출하였다. 이렇게 추출된 단모음을 스크립트를 사용해 균등하게 분할하여 6개 지점의 1과 F2 값을 구하고 이를 하나의 선으로 연결하였다. 결과 그 결과 전체적으로 한국인 모어 화자에 비해 중국인 학습자들의 포먼트 궤적의 변화가 큰 것으로 나타났다. 특히 전설 모음은 두 집단 간 큰 차이가 없었으나 후설 모음은 한국어 모어 화자에 비해 중국인 학습자들의 포먼트 궤적이 상대적으로 더 동적이었다. 후설 모음 중에서 /오/와 /어/는 중반부 이후에 상승하는데 그 상승 정도가 한국인 모어 화자들에 비해 더 큰 것으로 보아 /오/와 /어/를 발음할 때 중반부를 지나면서부터 한국인 모어 화자에 비해 구강 내에서 혀를 상대적으로 앞에 위치한 상태로 조음하는 것을 알 수 있다. 결론 이를 통해 중국인 학습자들이 한국어 모음을 발음할 때는 전설 모음에서는 포먼트 궤적의 형태가 큰 차이를 보이지는 않지만 중설과 후설 모음을 발음할 때는 한국인이 조음한 모음의 포먼트 궤적과 다른 형태를 보이는 것을 알 수 있다. 중국인 학습자들이 모음 /어/를 /이/와 /오/, /오/를 /우/로 혼동해서 사용한다는 것을 알 수 있다. 중국인 학습자들이 후설 조음을 조음할 때 한국어 모어 화자에 비해 입모양이나 혀의 위치를 더 많이 움직이는 것을 확인하였다. Objectives The purpose of this study is to find the dynamic change of Korean single vowels uttered by Chinese learners. Through this, it can be used as basic data to analyze the characteristics of errors that Chinese learners cause when pronouncing Korean single vowels and to teach Korean pronunciation. Methods For this purpose, the formant trajectories of single vowels uttered in the hVda environment were obtained and compared and contrasted by 5 Chinese female learners studying Korean level 2 at a university language education center in Seoul and 5 female Korean native speakers born and raised in Seoul and Gyeonggi. First, by recording the experimental data composed of hVda, leading and trailing consonants were removed in Praat, a voice analysis program, and only single vowels were extracted. The single vowels thus extracted were equally divided using a script to obtain the 1 and F2 values of 6 points and connected with a single line. Results As a result, overall, the change in the formant trajectory of Chinese learners was greater than that of native Korean speakers. In particular, there was no significant difference between the two groups in front vowel, but the formant trajectory of Chinese learners was relatively more dynamic in the back vowel than the native Korean speakers. Among the back vowels, /o/wa /uh/ rises after the middle part, and the degree of rise is larger than that of native Korean speakers. It can be seen that articulation is performed with the tongue positioned relatively in front of the oral cavity. Conclusions Through this, it can be seen that, when Chinese learners Korean vowels, the formant trajectory does not show a significant difference in the formant trajectory of the front vowel, but when pronouncing the middle and back vowels, the formant trajectory is different from the formant trajectory of the Korean articulated vowels. can It can be seen that Chinese learners confuse the vowels /uh/ with /i/ and /o/, and /o/ with /u/. It can be seen that when Chinese learners articulate the back vowel, they move their mouth shape and tongue position more than native Korean speakers.

여성 모음 포먼트와 해금 포먼트의 비교를 통한 공감각적 색상 상징성 연구

고수진 한국음악학학회 2024 음악학 Vol.32 No.1

모든 악기의 소리는 그 악기의 특성을 나타내는 고유의 포먼트(Formants)가있다. 악기 소리 뿐만 아니라 사람의 목소리 ‘모음’도 포먼트로 나타낼 수 있는데, F1은 턱벌림의 위치, 즉 모음의 개방성과 관련이 있다. 그리고 F2는 혀의 전후 위치, 즉 모음의 전면성과 관련이 있다. 이를 바탕으로 해금과 여성 모음의 포먼트를 비교 분석하면 다음과 같다. 여성 모음의 포먼트를 분석하면 다음과 같다. 그래프상에서 영어 모음 ‘ɑ’와한국어 모음 ‘아’를 비교해 보았을 때, F1과 F2가 다소 높은 한국어 모음 ‘아’가영어 모음 ‘ɑ’보다 더 밝다. 실제로 발음을 해보았을 때도 한국어 모음 ‘아’는 혀가 다소 앞쪽으로 나온 밝은 소리이고, 영어 모음 ‘ɑ’는 혀가 뒤로 들어간 입 안에서 나는 다소 어두운 소리이다. 공감각 예술가들의 색청 인식 결과에서 보듯이, 바이올린의 음색에서 ‘적색’을느끼는 것처럼, 같은 찰현악기인 해금에서도 ‘적색’을 느낀다 할 수 있다. 모음‘ɑ’가 해금의 음고보다는 F3, F4는 비슷하지만 F1, F2가 낮아서 다소 어두운 음색일 거라는 것을 유추할 수 있고, 실제로 한국어 모음 ‘아’보다 어두운 음색이다. 물론 ‘ɑ’와 ‘아’가 비슷한 소리이긴 하지만 한국어 모음 ‘아’가 보다 해금 음색에 가까운 음색이라는 것이다. 즉, 바이올린 음색은 영어 ‘ɑ’에 가깝고, 그와 비슷한 한국 찰현 국악기 해금은한국어 모음 ‘아’에 가까우며, 바이올린 음색보다 해금의 음색이 좀더 밝고 강하다고 할 수 있겠다. The sound of every instrument has unique formants that represent the characteristics of that instrument. Not only the sounds of musical instruments but also the ‘vowels’ of the human voice can be expressed as formants, and F1 is related to the position of the jaw opening, that is, the openness of the vowel. And F2 is related to the anterior-posterior position of the tongue, that is, the frontality of the vowel. Based on this, a comparative analysis of the formants of Haegeum and female vowels is as follows. The formants of female vowels are analyzed as follows. When comparing the English vowel ‘ɑ’ and the Korean vowel ‘아’ on the graph, the Korean vowel ‘아’, which has somewhat higher F1 and F2, is brighter than the English vowel ‘ɑ’. When actually pronounced, the Korean vowel ‘아’ is a bright sound made with the tongue slightly forward, while the English vowel ‘ɑ’ is a somewhat dark sound made inside the mouth with the tongue turned back. As seen in the color perception results of synesthetes, just as one feels ‘red’ in the tone of a violin, one can also feel ‘red’ in the haegeum, a stringed instrument. It can be inferred that the vowel ‘ɑ’ has a similar pitch in F3 and F4 compared to the haegeum, but is lower in F1 and F2, so it has a somewhat darker tone. In fact, it is a darker tone than the Korean vowel ‘아’. Of course, ‘ɑ’ and ‘아’ are similar sounds, but the Korean vowel ‘아’ is closer to the tone of the haegeum. In other words, the violin tone is close to the English ‘ɑ’, and the similar Korean stringed Korean instrument, Haegeum, is close to the Korean vowel ‘아’, and the tone of the Haegeum can be said to be brighter and stronger than the violin tone.

Formant Trajectories of English High Tense and Lax Vowels Produced by Korean and American Speakers

양병곤 한국언어학회 2010 언어 Vol.35 No.2

Yang, Byunggon. 2010. Formant Trajectories of English High Tense and Lax Vowels Produced by Korean and American Speakers. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 35-2, 407-423. Previous studies on the pronunciation of English vowels reported that Korean learners had difficulty producing English tense and lax vowel pairs distinctively. The acoustic comparisons of those studies are mostly based on formant measurements at a single slice of a given vowel section. However, the English vowels usually show dynamic spectral changes across the segment, and only partial data on the vowel segment may be insufficient. The purpose of this paper is to compare the dynamic formant trajectories of English high tense and lax vowel pairs produced by twenty Korean and American males and females. Results showed that the American males and females produced the tense and lax pairs much more distinctly than the Korean counterparts did. Many fine-grained differences along the six measurement points were observed both in the formant trajectories and on the vowel space. These results suggest that more detailed analysis be required in the cross-linguistic comparison of English vowels. Also, the Korean speakers should pay more attention to the dynamic movements of formants in addition to the jaw and tongue positions in order to match those of the American speakers. (Pusan National University)

소프라노 1인의 모음곡 발성 시 제 1 포먼트의 변화양상

송윤경,진성민,Song, Yun-Kyung,Jin, Sung-Min 대한후두음성언어의학회 2005 대한후두음성언어의학회지 Vol.16 No.1

Background and Objectives : Vowels are characterized on the basis of formant patterns. The first formant(F1) is determined by high-low placement of the tongue, and the second formant (F2) by front-back placement of the tongue. The fundamental frequency(F0) of a soprano often exceed the normal frequency of the first formant. And the vocal intensity is boosted when F0 is high and a harmonic coincides with a formant. This is called a formant tuning. Experienced singers thus learned how to tune their formants over a resonable range by lowering the tongue to maximize their vocal intensity. So, the current study aimed to identify the formant tuning in one experienced soprano by comparing the first formants of vowel [i] in three different voice production : speech, ascending scale, and vocalize. Materials and Method : All voices recordings of vowel [i] in speech, ascending scale (from F4 note to A4 note), and vocalize(:Ridente la calam") were made with digital audio tape-corder in a sound treated room. And the captured data were analyzed by the long term average(LTA) power spectrum using the FFT algorithm of the Computerized Speech Lab(CSL, Kay elementrics, Model, 4300B). Results : Although the first formant of vowel [i] in speech was 238Hz, those of ascending scale [i] were 377Hz, 405Hz, 453Hz respectively in F4(349z), G4(392Hz), A4(440Hz) note, and 722Hz, 820Hz, 918Hz respectively in F5 (698Hz), G5(784Hz), A5(880Hz) note. In vocalize, first formants of [i] were 380Hz, 398Hz, 453Hz respectively in F4, G4, A4 note, and 720Hz, 821Hz, 890Hz respectively in F5, G5, A5 note. Conclusion : These results showed that the first formant of ascending scale and vocalize sustained higher frequency than fundamental frequency in high pitch. This finding implicates that the formant tuning of vowel [i] in ascending scale was also noted in vocalize.

강세에 따른 영어 모음의 포먼트 변이와 모음 발음 교육에의 응용

김지은(Kim, Ji-Eun),윤규철(Yoon, Kyuchul) 한국음성학회 2013 말소리와 음성과학 Vol.5 No.2

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 /æ/ 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.

Acauisition of English Vowels by Korean ESL Speakers: A Phonetic Approach

김수정 대한언어학회 2006 언어학 Vol.14 No.2

Kim, Soo-Jung. 2006. Acquisition of English Vowels by Korean ESL speakers: A Phonetic Approach. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 14(2), 1-16. English has a phonemic distinction of tense and lax vowels that Korean does not have in its sound inventory. Discriminating tense and lax vowels in English is crucial in some cases to catch the right meaning of sentences. In this respect, this study is aimed to diagnose how accurately the tense and lax distinction is acquired by Korean ESL speakers. Specifically, the perception and production ability of Korean English learners are investigated. First, according to perception tests on three groups, high school students(early English learners) showed little difference from college students(late learners): 58 vs. 60%. The teachers group displayed a slightly higher identification rate of 71%. Second, the acoustic measurements of vowel duration and formant frequencies on the speech of Korean ESL and native English speakers suggested each group used different strategies in producing the vowels. The native speakers use both cues of vowel durations and formant frequencies. In contrast, the Korean ESL speakers showed a difference in vowel length, but no statistical difference in formant frequencies, indicating only the length feature is acquired and used in distinguishing the tense and lax vowels in English.

군집화에 의한 자연발화 모음의 포먼트 대푯값 추정 연구

윤원희(Yun, Weonhee) 언어과학회 2016 언어과학연구 Vol.0 No.77

This study investigates a method of finding vowel frequencies using clustering. A vowel has several data points for formant frequency that are generally obtained using a formant tracker. However, it is hard to say that any number from the data points is representative of the formant frequency of the vowel. There is general agreement that the so-called steady state of the vowel is the area where the representative formant frequency should be obtained, but there is no consensus on how to define the steady state and how to calculate the representative formant frequency of the vowel. This study shows how the representative formant frequency of a vowel is obtained using clustering after calculating the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of the consecutive formant values within the middle 33.3% and 50% of the vowel period. This method can reduce the size of the standard deviation of formant frequencies of the vowel so that the representative formant values have greater explanatory potential.

아동 모음 오류의 포먼트 분석의 아동 모음 오류의 포먼트 분석의 타당성에 관한 연구

박성지(Sung Ji Park) 한국언어치료학회 2008 言語治療硏究 Vol.17 No.3