Communicative prosody generation using language common features provided by input lexicons

We already examined language independent control characteristics of the communicative prosody generation using multi-dimensional impressions of input lexicons. In this paper, we synthesized English single phrase utterances using prosodic characteristics of Japanese speech aiming at language independent applications. The reading-style speech prosodies of English phrases were modified by prosodic characteristics derived from one-word utterance of Japanese speech "n". Modifications were carried out based on lexical impressions corresponding to six impressions consisting of confident, doubtful, allowable, unacceptable, positive and negative. The perceptual evaluation experiment showed the naturalness of speech with communicative prosody modified by the impression of input lexicons. These experimental results support the usefulness of the communicative prosody control based on the impression of input lexicons and suggest possibilities of language independent applications.