Fundamental studies about differential limen (DL) for word-based speech rate variations in Japanese are described. In our previous study, the DLs are expressed by subtractive difference of mora duration. In this report, however, to fit the expression for various global speech rate, the DLs are expressed by variation ratio of mora duration. We carry out auditory tests with stimuli made by equall...

This study examined duration of Japanese threeand four-mora words produced by native speakers at three speaking rates. Examined word pairs had single and geminate stop contrasts. Three types of words were used that differed in their moraic compositions including (1) a CV mora, (2) a moraic nasal, and (3) a long vowel. We found that the word type had differential effects on the contrasting stop ...

In this paper, I investigate the role of the mora in providing an adequate account of wordinternal prosodic organization and its phonetic realization. I review several phonological arguments in favor of the mora, including the cross-linguistic pervasiveness of two-way weight contrasts, observed onset/rime asymmetries, the representation of weight bearing geminates vs. “doubled consonants”, and ...

A slower phrase in spontaneous conversational speech is caused by emphasis, thinking during speaking and so on. To include such useful information with man-machine communication, we investigate a method to detect local slower phrase from time sequence of mora duration in Japanese dialog speech. At first we prepare speech samples, which contains phrases slowed considerably. Then the flow of the ...

This paper discusses two well-known phonetic-phonological phenomena of Japanese, vowel devoicing and mora-timed rhythm. Regarding vowel devoicing as a process of vowels getting consonantal, it may change the mora-templated syllable structures of Japanese, resulting in the deviation from mora-timed rhythm. To investigate spontaneous Japanese with comparison to other languages, the label data of ...

Understanding how plant functional traits shape nutrient limitation and cycling on land is a major challenge in ecology. This is especially true for lowland forest ecosystems of the tropics which can be taxonomically and functionally diverse and rich in bioavailable nitrogen (N). In many tropical regions, however, diverse forests occur side-by-side with monodominant forest (one species >60% of ...

A language learning system for guiding a student on how to pronounce words of a second language must provide meaningful feedback while locating the learner’s errors with a high accuracy. We propose a method to detect pitch accent errors in the speech of learners of Japanese. In previous methods, Tokyo accent type recognition of the learner utterance was focused on. However, the learner may prod...

In Japanese continuous speech, a content word is frequently followed by a particle to form an utterance unit with one accent component, called an accentual phrase or a prosodic word. As opposed to accent type identification for isolated word utterances, automatic accent type identification for accentual phrases in continuous speech is quite difficult, and no reliable method has yet been develop...

nowadays, occurrence of mass movement in the northern forests ofiran, especially in the golestan province is turning to be a usual phenomenon. because of decay of vegetation cover, prediction of landslide occurrence will prevent its damages. landslide hazard zonation is a suitable way in this case. selection of the best model is a way to decrease costs and time. consequently, land slide hazard ...