A text-to-speech system for italian

A system for the automatic translation of any text of Italian into naturally fluent speech is presented. The system, planned for use in a reading machine for the blind, is build up around a Phonological Processor (hence FP) and synthesizes speech-by joining LPC coded diphones. The FP maps into prosodic structures the phonological rules of Italian. Structural information is provided by such hierarchical prosodic constituents as Syllable (S), Metrical Foot (MF), Phonological Word (PW), Intonationa T Group (IG). Onto these structures, phonological rules are applied such as the "letter-to-sound" rules, automatic word stress rules, internal stress hierarchy rules indicating secondary stress, external sandhi rules, phonological focus assignment rules, logical focus assignment rules.