An Optimal Analysis of Korean Copula

Mira Oh 한국음운론학회 1998 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.4 No.-

Oh, Mira. 1998. An Optimal Analysis of Korean Copula. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 4, 175-187. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Optimality Theory provides a better account for the various alternations exhibited by Korean copula than a sequence of separate phonological rules. The OT analysis crucially relies on the morphological and prosodic structure of Korean copula. This paper argues that Korean copula is a clitic morphologically and an affixal clitic prosodically. (Yeojoo Institute of Technology)

Outcome of Early Initiation of Peritoneal Dialysis in Patients with End-Stage Renal Failure

Oh, Kook-Hwan,Hwang, Young-Hwan,Cho, Jung-Hwa,Kim, Mira,Ju, Kyung Don,Joo, Kwon Wook,Kim, Dong Ki,Kim, Yon Su,Ahn, Curie,Oh, Yun Kyu The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences 2012 JOURNAL OF KOREAN MEDICAL SCIENCE Vol.27 No.2

<P>Recent studies reported that early initiation of hemodialysis may increase mortality. However, studies that assessed the influence of early initiation of peritoneal dialysis (PD) yielded controversial results. In the present study, we evaluated the prognosis of early initiation of PD on the various outcomes of end stage renal failure patients by using propensity-score matching methods. Incident PD patients (n = 491) who started PD at SNU Hospital were enrolled. The patients were divided into 'early starters (n = 244)' and 'late starters (n = 247)' on the basis of the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at the start of dialysis. The calculated propensity-score was used for one-to-one matching. After propensity-score-based matching (n = 136, for each group), no significant differences were observed in terms of all-cause mortality (<I>P</I> = 0.17), technique failure (<I>P</I> = 0.62), cardiovascular event (<I>P</I> = 0.96) and composite event (<I>P</I> = 0.86) between the early and late starters. Stratification analysis in the propensity-score quartiles (n = 491) exhibited no trend toward better or poorer survival in terms of all-cause mortality. In conclusion, early commencement of PD does not reduce the mortality risk and other outcomes. Although the recent guidelines suggest that initiation of dialysis at higher eGFR, physicians should not determine the time to initiate PD therapy simply rely on the eGFR alone.</P>

Duration modulation in Korean stops: nonlocal similarity avoidance vs. timing regulation

Mira Oh,Dahee Kim,Hijo Kang 한국음운론학회 2020 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.26 No.1

This study examines the duration modulation of C 1 VC 2 V sequences in Korean. We conducted two production experiments to test the effect of nonlo cal stops on durations of segments. In Experiment 1, Seoul and Gwangju Korean speakers recorded C 1 aC 1 ata and C 1 alata (C 1 = lenis, aspirated, and tense stops) sequences. The results showed that C 1 VOT of aspirated stops was significantly shorter before another aspirated stop as in Mongolian (Svantesson and Karlsson but that neither F0 nor H2 H1 were affected. The follow up experiment, in which the types of stimuli were increased, provided two more findings. First, the trigger of shortening is ‘long VO T’ rather than the laryngeal feature [asp]. As well as the C 1 aspirated stop, the C 1 lenis stop shortened the VOT of the C 2 aspirated stop. Second, the shortening effect is bidirectional. Not only C 2 long VOT shortened C 1 VOT, but also C 1 long VOT shortene d C 2 VOT. This cannot be accounted for by segmental OCP or gradient dissimilation because the effect is purely phonetic and the two stops do not become more different. We argue that the data is explained by an isochrony tendency which modulates long periods of segments. In addition, we adopted a V to V interval to account for the duration modulation beyond syllables.

/W/-Variants in Korean

Oh Mira(오미라) 한국음성학회 2010 말소리와 음성과학 Vol.2 No.3

No systematic study has examined the relationship between acoustic variability and /w/-deletion in Korean. Most previous studies on /w/-deletion have described /w/-variants in categorical terms, i.e., /w/-deletion or a full glide (Silva 1991; Kang 1997; Yun 2005). These studies are based either on impressionistic judgements without a systematic acoustic analysis or on an exclusive examination of internal acoustic variability of /w/ such as F2, without examining the availability of external acoustic cues such as voice onset time (VOT) of a consonant. However, given the important influence of the adjacent sounds for segmental realizations, it is necessary to examine possible acoustic variability in the differentiation of /w/-variants. The present study aims to address this issue by evaluating the acoustic properties of /CwV/, including VOT and formant transitions. In the analysis, 432 tokens in word-initial position (216 /CwV/ words and 216 /CV/ words) were examined. The results indicated that /w/ exhibits four different variants. Firstly, /w/ is realized as a full glide. Such a variant is characterized by a VOT difference and significant differences in F1 and F2 at voicing onset compared with /CwV/ and /CV/. Secondly, /w/ can be maintained but coarticulated with the following vowel. Such a variant is demonstrated by differences in VOT and F2. Thirdly, /w/ is categorically deleted, which is indicated by the absence of any differences in VOT, F1, and F2. Fourthly, /w/ overlaps a consonant. The F2 difference without VOT difference is manifested in the variant. In contrast to VOT, F1, and F2 differences, pitch plays little role in determining /w/-variants in Korean. These findings suggest that allophones can be produced along a gradient continuum of acoustic cues, exhibiting sounds intermediate between the full realization of a given category and its deletion. Furthermore, each variant can be cued by a set of internal and external acoustic cues.

Obstruent Geminates in Korean

Mira Oh 한국언어학회 2000 언어 Vol.25 No.3

The Korean Copula and Palatalization

Oh, Mira 서울대학교 어학연구소 1991 語學硏究 Vol.27 No.4

The Korean palatalization of dental stops has been claimed by Ahn (1985) to be lexical in the model of Lexical Phonology insofar as it applies only between word boundaries and it obeys strict cyclicity. However, it turns out that palatalization also applies before the copula /i/. Assuming that the palatalization rule is a word internal sandhi rule applying only within the domain of the phonological word, the copula /i/ should be considered an affix to condition the lexical palatalization rule. This paper discusses the morphological status of the copula and provides substantial evidence for treating it as a clitic as opposed to an affix or an independent word on the basis of tests developed by Zwicky and Pullum (1983) and Zwicky (1985). It also discusses other rules referring to the phonological word as their domain and defines the phonological word in Korean as a morphological word plus either clitics or affixes.

The Phonetics and Phonology of Korean Obstruent Geminates

Oh, Mira 이화여자대학교 영미학연구소 2007 영어학 연구 Vol.- No.12

The purposes of this paper are twofold; Firstly, we argue against Cho and Inkelas's (1993, 1994) contention that Post Obstruent Tensification (POT) in Korean is a counterexample to geminate inalterability. We provide a few arguments against their assumption that the branching geometry of geminates exists before POT. Secondly, we investigate the relationship between production and perception by examining phonetic realizations and perception of Korean tense consonants and geminate tense consonants. A comparison of the phonetic duration results and perceptual results suggests that there exists some mismatches between production and perception.

An Acoustic Comparison of Korean Coronal Fricatives in the Seoul and Yanbian Korean Dialects

Mira Oh,Hui Yang 한국중원언어학회 2015 언어학연구 Vol.0 No.34

This study was intended 1) to investigate acoustic realizations of the fortis /s’/ and non-fortis /s/ in Seoul and Yanbian Korean and 2) to explore how a two-way phonemic contrast, /s/ and /s’/, can be compared with a three-way laryngeal contrast of Korean stops in each dialect. Korean fricatives from 10 Seoul and 10 Yanbian Korean speakers were analyzed in terms of fricative duration, center of gravity, F0, H1-H2 and duration of adjacent vowels. This study generated five interesting findings: First, the fortis /s’/ mainly differs from the non-fortis /s/ in frication duration in Seoul Korean. Second, H1-H2 plays a systematic role in differentiating the non-fortis /s/ from the fortis /s’/ in Yanbian Korean. Third, in Yanbian Korean, center of gravity of the non-fortis /s/ is higher than fortis /s’/. Fourth, in Seoul Korean, the fortis /s’/ patterns with tense obstruents, whereas its counterpart /s/ exhibits the phonetic characteristics of lenis and aspirated obstruents. Finally, in Yanbian Korean, the fortis /s’/ shows the properties similar to lenis and tense obstruents, while the non-fortis /s/ demonstrates a comparable pattern as lenis and aspirated obstruents.

An Optimal Analysis for Korean Loanword Phonology

Oh, Mira 이화영어학회 1996 영어학 연구 Vol.- No.1

There have been two major different approaches in formal constraint-based models concerning loanword phonology. One is the Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies (TCRS) and the other is Optimality Theory (OT). In this paper, I argue for OT as opposed to the TCRS, focusing on the adoption of English loanwords into Korean. Furthermore, it is shown that loanword phonology is distinct from native phonology.

A phonetic duration-based analysis of vowel epenthesis: English postvocalic word-final stops

Mira Oh(오미라),Hyung-Sun Kim(김형선) 한국음운론학회 2006 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.12 No.2

  Kang (2003) argues that vowel epenthesis results from enhancement of perceptual similarity based on phonetic, phonological and morphophonemic constraints in Korean. She argues that vowel epenthesis reflects the degree of release, voicing, and the place of articulation of stops. On the other hand, Broselow and Park’s (1995) mora-based analysis is based on vowel tenseness. They attribute vowel epenthesis to a way to preserve one of the two morae of a tense vowel. In this paper, we argue against these previous analyses for vowel epenthesis.<BR>  We will propose the phonetic duration-based analysis for vowel epenthesis in English loanword adaptation in Korean. Three claims will be made in this paper. Firstly, vowel epenthesis occurs after a postvocalic word-final stop if the pre-final vowel is long. Secondly, vowel length includes both phonemic and subphonemic duration. Thirdly, the phonetic duration-based analysis argues for the phonetic approach (Steriade 2001; Silverman 1992) as opposed to the phonological approach(Lacharit? and Paradis 2002, 2005) in loan adaptation.