Title :
Prosody and style controls in CU VOCAL using SSML and SAPI XML tags
Author :
Fung, Tien-Ying ; Li, Yuk-Chi ; Meng, Helen ; Ching, P.C.
Author_Institution :
Human-Comput. Commun. Lab., Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, Shatin, China
Abstract :
CU VOCAL is a Cantonese text-to-speech (TTS) engine. We use a syllable-based concatenative synthesis approach to generate intelligible and natural synthetic speech in Cantonese. The paper reports on our recent enhancements in CU VOCAL to support user adjustments in prosody and style with the use of the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) in the input text. CU VOCAL was previously developed as a SAPI-compliant engine to enable easy integration with other applications. The paper also reports on our enhancements in the CU VOCAL SAPI (speech API) engine to support the SAPI 5 XML tags.
Keywords :
XML; application program interfaces; natural language interfaces; speech synthesis; Cantonese text-to-speech engine; SAPI XML tags; SSML; Speech Synthesis Markup Language; prosody; style; syllable-based concatenative synthesis; Communication system control; Digital signal processing; Engines; Laboratories; Markup languages; Research and development management; Speech synthesis; Systems engineering and theory; Technical Activities Guide -TAG; XML;
Conference_Titel :
Chinese Spoken Language Processing, 2004 International Symposium on
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8678-7
DOI :
10.1109/CHINSL.2004.1409623
