Vowel identification in continuous speech using articulatory parameters

An effective method to estimate articulatory movements has been developed and applied for speech recognition. Movements of articulatory parameters estimated from speech waves are usefel features in speech recognition, especially for continuous speech. In this paper, a method to identify vowels in continuous speech of unspecified speakers is discussed. First, results for discrete utterances of Japanese five vowels are shown. A normalization procedure to eliminate speaker differences is useful in vowel recognition. Second, results on vowel discrimination in continuous speech are reported. It is seen that rather simple algorithms in the articulatory domain are effective to deal with coarticulation effects in various contexts.