A phonetic-context controlled strategy for segmentation and phonetic labeling of speech

This paper considers a sequential strategy for acoustic-phonetic speech analysis. Each analysis process is applied to an appropriately labeled speech segment and results in a possible sub-segmentation of the original segment. The segments resulting from the analysis are labeled according to the analysis results. The advantages of the strategy are that no more segments are considered than those actually differentiated by the analysis steps. The extraction of acoustic cues pertinent to a phonetic feature can be tuned to classes of sounds separated on the basis of other cues, and this serves to increase the reliability of segment labeling. The analysis sequence yields a structure for the syllabic units of the speech signal that may be used to retrieve similar syllabic units for detailed comparison.