Yoonjeong Lee

Communicatively driven versus prosodically driven hyper-articulation in Korean

Abstract This study investigated how three different kinds of hyper-articulation, one communicatively driven (in clear speech), and two prosodically driven (with boundary and prominence/focus), are acoustic-phonetically realized in Korean. Several important points emerged from the results obtained from an acoustic study with eight speakers of Seoul Korean. First, clear speech gave rise to global modification of the temporal and prosodic structures over the course of the utterance, showing slowing down of the utterance and more prosodic phrases. Second, although the three kinds of hyper-articulation were similar in some aspects, they also differed in many aspects, suggesting that different sources of hyper-articulation are encoded separately in speech production. Third, the three kinds of hyper-articulation interacted with each other; the communicatively driven hyper-articulation was prosodically modulated, such that in a clear speech mode not every segment was hyper-articulated to the same degree, but prosodically important landmarks (e.g., in IP-initial and/or focused conditions) were weighted more. Finally, Korean, a language without lexical stress and pitch accent, showed different hyper-articulation patterns compared to other, Indo-European languages such as English—i.e., it showed more robust domain-initial strengthening effects (extended beyond the first initial segment), focus effects (extended to V1 and V2 of the entire bisyllabic test word) and no use of global F0 features in clear speech. Overall, the present study suggests that the communicatively driven and the prosodically driven hyper-articulations are intricately intertwined in ways that reflect not only interactions of principles of gestural economy and contrast enhancement, but also language-specific prosodic systems, which further modulate how the three kinds of hyper-articulations are phonetically expressed.

Prosodic strengthening on the /s/-stop cluster and the phonetic implementation of an allophonic rule in English

Abstract This acoustic study investigates effects of boundary and prominence on the temporal structure of s#CV and #sCV in English, and on the phonetic implementation of the allophonic rule whereby a voiceless stop after /s/ becomes unaspirated. Results obtained with acoustic temporal measures for /sCV/ sequences showed that the segments at the source of prosodic strengthening ( i.e. , /s/ in #sCV for boundary marking and the nucleus vowel for prominence marking) were expanded in both absolute and relational terms, whereas other durational components distant from the source ( e.g. , stop closure duration in #sCV ) showed temporal expansion only in the absolute measure. This suggests that speakers make an extra effort to expand the very first segment and the nucleus vowel more than the rest of the sequence in order to signal the pivotal loci of the boundary vs. the prominence information. The potentially ambiguous s#CV and #sCV sequences ( e.g. , ice#can vs. eye#sca n) were never found to be neutralized even in the phrase-internal condition, cuing the underlying syllable structures with fine phonetic detail. Most crucially, an already short lag VOT in #sCV (due to the allophonic rule) was shortened further under prosodic strengthening, which was interpreted as enhancement of the phonetic feature {voiceless unaspirated}. It was proposed that prosodic strengthening makes crucial reference to the phonetic feature system of the language and operates on a phonetic feature, including the one derived by a language-specific allophonic rule. An alternative account was also discussed in gestural terms in the framework of Articulatory Phonology.

Feasibility study for combination of field-flow fractionation (FFF)-based separation of size-coded particle probes with amplified surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) tagging for simultaneous detection of multiple miRNAs

We propose a new analytical scheme in which field-flow fractionation (FFF)-based separation of target-specific polystyrene (PS) particle probes of different sizes are incorporated with amplified surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) tagging for the simultaneous and sensitive detection of multiple microRNAs (miRNAs). For multiplexed detection, PS particles of three different diameters (15, 10, 5u202fμm) were used for the size-coding, and a probe single stranded DNA (ssDNA) complementary to a target miRNA was conjugated on an intended PS particle. After binding of a target miRNA on PS probe, polyadenylation reaction was executed to generate a long tail composed of adenine (A) serving as a binding site to thymine (T) conjugated Au nanoparticles (T-AuNPs) to increase SERS intensity. The three size-coded PS probes bound with T-AuNPs were then separated in a FFF channel. With the observation of extinction-based fractograms, separation of three size-coded PS probes was clearly confirmed, thereby enabling of measuring three miRNAs simultaneously. Raman intensities of FFF fractions collected at the peak maximum of 15, 10 and 5u202fμm PS probes varied fairy quantitatively with the change of miRNA concentrations, and the reproducibility of measurement was acceptable. The proposed method is potentially useful for simultaneous detection of multiple miRNAs with high sensitivity.

Relationships between Micronutrient Contents in Soils and Crops of Plastic Film House

Micronutrient status in soils and crops of plastic film house and their relationship were investigated. Total 203 plastic film houses were selected (red pepper, 66; cucumber, 63; tomato, 74) in Yeongnam region and soil and leaf samples were collected. Hot-water extractable B and 0.1 N HCl extractable Cu, Zn, Fe, and Mn in soil samples and total micronutrients in leaf samples were analyzed. Contents Zn, Fe, and Mn in most of the investigated soils were higher than the upper limits of optimum level for general crop cultivation. Contents of Cu in most soils of cucumber and tomato cultivation were higher than the upper limit of optimum level, but Cu contents in about 30% of red pepper cultivation soils were below the sufficient level. Contents of B in most soils of cucumber and tomato were above the sufficient level but in 48% of red pepper cultivation soils B were found to be deficient. Micronutrient contents in leaf of investigated crops were much variable. Contents of B, Fe, and Mn were mostly within the sufficient levels, while in 71% of red pepper samples Cu was under deficient level and in 44% of cucumber samples Cu contents were higher than the upper limit of sufficient level. Contents of Zn in red pepper and cucumber samples were mostly within the sufficient level but in 62% of tomato samples Zn contents were under deficient condition. However, any visible deficiency or toxicity symptoms of micronutrients were not found in the crops. No consistent relationships were found between micronutrient contents in soil and leaf, and this indicates that growth and absorption activity of root and interactions among the nutrients in soil might be important factors in overall micronutrient uptake of crops. For best management of micronutrients in plastic film house, much attention should be focused on the management of soil and plant characteristics which control the micronutrient uptake of crops.

Articulatory, acoustic, and prosodic accommodation in a cooperative maze navigation task

This study uses a maze navigation task in conjunction with a quasi-scripted, prosodically controlled speech task to examine acoustic and articulatory accommodation in pairs of interacting speakers. The experiment uses a dual electromagnetic articulography set-up to collect synchronized acoustic and articulatory kinematic data from two facing speakers simultaneously. We measure the members of a dyad individually before they interact, while they are interacting in a cooperative task, and again individually after they interact. The design is ideally suited to measure speech convergence, divergence, and persistence effects during and after speaker interaction. This study specifically examines how convergence and divergence effects during a dyadic interaction may be related to prosodically salient positions, such as preceding a phrase boundary. The findings of accommodation in fine-grained prosodic measures illuminate our understanding of how the realization of linguistic phrasal structure is coordinated across interacting speakers. Our findings on individual speaker variability and the time course of accommodation provide novel evidence for accommodation at the level of cognitively specified motor control of individual articulatory gestures. Taken together, these results have implications for understanding the cognitive control of interactional behavior in spoken language communication.

ACT: An Automatic Centroid Tracking tool for analyzing vocal tract actions in real-time magnetic resonance imaging speech production data

Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) speech production data have expanded the understanding of vocal tract actions. This letter presents an Automatic Centroid Tracking tool, ACT, which obtains both spatial and temporal information characterizing multi-directional articulatory movement. ACT auto-segments an articulatory object composed of connected pixels in a real-time MRI video, by finding its intensity centroids over time and returns kinematic profiles including direction and magnitude information of the object. This letter discusses the utility of ACT, which outperforms other similar object tracking techniques, by demonstrating its successful online tracking of vertical larynx movement. ACT can be deployed generally for dynamic image processing and analysis.

The role of vertical larynx movement in the tense-lax contrast of Seoul Korean stops across phrasal position

In contemporary Seoul Korean (SK), phrasal tone patterns are co-active with tone patterns that distinguish tense and lax stops. Utilizing real-time MRI, the current investigation of the SK stops elucidates the articulatory synergies that distinguish tense versus lax and how they function within SK’s Accentual Phrase (AP) prosodic system. The f0 and corresponding larynx height values were measured from sequences containing the three oral stops of SK placed in AP-initial and AP-internal prosodic positions. Larynx height was obtained by finding the intensity centroid within a locally selected region in the MR image around the larynx. We find a strong positive correlation between f0 and larynx height, indicating that vertical larynx movement is engaged in some tonal manipulation. We confirm the categorical consonant effect on f0 AP-initially (tense >> lax), compared to a gradient effect AP-internally (tense >= lax). In AP-initial position, the larynx height results mirror the f0 results, suggesting that the f0 goals associated with tenseness result in large part from a vertical larynx position manipulation. In AP-internal position, however, larynx height does not differentiate tense versus lax consonants, suggesting that some other articulatory activity, such as vocal fold stretching, is responsible for its f0 variations. [Work supported by NIH.]In contemporary Seoul Korean (SK), phrasal tone patterns are co-active with tone patterns that distinguish tense and lax stops. Utilizing real-time MRI, the current investigation of the SK stops elucidates the articulatory synergies that distinguish tense versus lax and how they function within SK’s Accentual Phrase (AP) prosodic system. The f0 and corresponding larynx height values were measured from sequences containing the three oral stops of SK placed in AP-initial and AP-internal prosodic positions. Larynx height was obtained by finding the intensity centroid within a locally selected region in the MR image around the larynx. We find a strong positive correlation between f0 and larynx height, indicating that vertical larynx movement is engaged in some tonal manipulation. We confirm the categorical consonant effect on f0 AP-initially (tense >> lax), compared to a gradient effect AP-internally (tense >= lax). In AP-initial position, the larynx height results mirror the f0 results, suggesting that the f...

Prosodic asymmetry in phonetic reorganization of Seoul Korean 3-way voiceless stop contrast

In younger generation Seoul Korean speakers, a phonetic reorganization of VOT and f0 in the phrase-initial stop contrast (i.e. aspirated, lenis, fortis) has been well documented. The current study elucidates how this local consonant effect on f0 further interacts with the global tonal patterns of the accentual phrase (AP). We test how the initial 3-way stop contrast is phonetically realized in AP-initial and AP-internal prosodic positions for six younger generation speakers (born 1980-1990). Our results show that the consonant effect on f0 is categorical in AP-initial position, compared to exhibiting a gradient effect in AP-internal position. We confirm an AP-initial VOT merger between aspirated and lenis stops, accompanied by an increased between-consonant f0 difference. In AP-internal position, along with a small but significant f0 difference, we found a near-merger of VOT between lenis and fortis stops, arising from the substantially reduced occurrence of intervocalic lenis voicing. Taken together, our...

Acoustic and articulatory measures of prosodic convergence in a cooperative maze navigation task

Convergence effects have been found in many aspects of communication between speakers in conversation. This study examines how phonetic properties of each speaker’s prosodic structure differ before, during and after participating in a cooperative maze task. Using two NDI electromagnetic articulatory tracking systems simultaneously, we recorded speakers of American English in dyads (one male dyad & one female dyad). Acoustic measurements included: 1) sentence durations, 2) phrase-final lengthening, 3) occurrence frequency of sentence-final boundary tones (percentage H%), and 4) peak F0 values in sentence-final words. Articulatory boundary strength measures for word-final consonant(s) articulations included: 1) movement durations, 2) displacement, and 3) time-to-peak velocity in phrase-medial and phrase-final positions. Speakers exhibited distinct phonetic patterns before the cooperative maze task. However, conversing speakers showed convergence effects in prosodic boundary strength, choice of boundary tone...

Effects of prosodic strengthening on /s/-stop sequences in English

This study examined the effects of prosodic strengthening (arising with prosodic boundary and accent) on English /s/-stop sequences in a sentence. First, the domain-initial strengthening effect was not strictly confined to the first segment, but it could extend into the second consonant and, at least partially, into the following vowel in the #/sCV/ sequence. However, some effects of domain-initial strengthening were sensitive to the presence or absence of accent. Second, prosodic strengthening gave rise to the shortened VOT for the voiceless stop in the #/sCV/ sequence, suggesting that prosodic strengthening can operate on the phonetic manifestation of a phonological rule by reinforcing its phonetic outcome. Third, although two aspects of prosodic marking patterned significantly differently, their interactions revealed that accent-induced strengthening are employed not to emphasize every accented word with the same degree, but to put more weight on the accented word that also reflects important positio...