Synthesizing prosody: a prominence-based approach

Author

Heuft, Barbara ; Portele, Thomas

Author_Institution

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, Iper, Belgium

Volume

3

fYear

1996

fDate

3-6 Oct 1996

Firstpage

1361

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;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Spoken Language, 1996. ICSLP 96. Proceedings., Fourth International Conference on

Conference_Location

Philadelphia, PA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3555-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSLP.1996.607866

Filename

607866