A Phonological Knowledge Base System Using Unification-based Formalism - A Case Study of Korean Phonology

This paper describes the framework of a Korean phonological knowledge base system using the unificationbased grammar formalism : Korean Phonology Structure Grammar (KPSG). The approach of KPSG provides an explicit development model for constructing a computational phonological system : speech recognition and synthesis system. We show that the proposed approach is more describable than other approaches such as those employing a traditional generative phonological approach. 1, Introduction Knowledge Base System Using Unification-based Formalism A Case Study of Korean Phonology Hee-Sung Chung Korea Academy of Industrial Technology(KAITECH) 70-6, Yangjae-Dong, Seocho-Gu, S6oul Korea syllable consists of all the segments that precede the neeleus and are tantosyllabic segments that follow the necleus. A syllable that has no coda is called "open syllable" : one with a coda is called "closed syllable". According to the above definitions of a syllable structure, the Korean syllable can be described as follows : This paper has two main goals: one is to investigate the phonological "knowledge base system for constructing a Korean speech recognition and synthesis system, the other is to show that our formalism is more describable than other systems employing the traditional phonological approaches[I] [21. A language has its own sound patterns. By sound pattens we mean (1) set of sounds that occur is a language, (2) the permissible arrangement of the sounds in words and (3) the processing for adding, deleting, or changing sound [3]. A speech recognition/synthesis system also needs a phonological knowledge base system (data base), and the rules which govern the sound sequences and the phonological processes. Traditinoally, a computational phonological systems have been described and classified in terms of 'Generative Phonology[4]', However most of those approaches are not sufficient to describe the various knowledge of a computational speech system. In this paper, we show the feasibility of phonological knowledge base system with a uriification-based formalism, and illustrate the flexibility of implementation and representation. (closed) syllable (open) j s y l l a b l e ~