Title :
Synthesizing prosody: a prominence-based approach
Author :
Heuft, Barbara ; Portele, Thomas
Author_Institution :
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, Iper, Belgium
Abstract :
A method for generating acoustic prosody is presented that starts from a very simple symbolic input. We present evidence that prominence is a central factor influencing both perception and acoustic parameters. Results of statistical analysis of a large speech corpus are shown, these results have led to the development of a rule system that predicts fundamental frequency and syllable duration. Besides the prominence of syllables and boundaries, position, context and syllable structure are considered by these rules. Finally, the outcome of two evaluation experiments is presented
Keywords :
knowledge based systems; natural language interfaces; speech synthesis; statistical analysis; acoustic parameters; acoustic prosody generation; boundaries; evaluation experiments; fundamental frequency; large speech corpus; perception; prominence-based approach; prosody synthesis; rule system; statistical analysis; syllable duration; syllables; symbolic input; Databases; Delay; Frequency; Speech analysis; Speech synthesis; Statistical analysis;
Conference_Titel :
Spoken Language, 1996. ICSLP 96. Proceedings., Fourth International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Philadelphia, PA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-3555-4
DOI :
10.1109/ICSLP.1996.607866
