Computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation method and system

• US 20020087317A1
• Filed: 05/23/2001
• Published: 07/04/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Qjunction Technology, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qjunction Technology, Inc.
• Inventors: Basir, Otman A., Sun, Jiping, Jing, Xing, Karray, Fakhreddine O., Lee, Victor Wai Leung
• Application Number:
  US09/863,947
• Publication Number:
  US 20020087317A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/257
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/06 Creation of reference templates; Training of speech recognition systems, e.g. adaptation to the characteristics of the speaker's voice G10L15/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/183 using context dependencies, e.g. language models
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/187 Phonemic context, e.g. pronunciation rules, phonotactical constraints or phoneme n-grams
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/30 using neural networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

A computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system and method that includes a dictionary storage unit for containing word pronunciation rules. A dictionary generation unit determines a first set of possible pronunciation rules for a pre-selected word. A neural network accepts word spelling as an input and generates at least one pronunciation rule as an output. The pronunciation rule from the neural network is used within the first set of possible pronunciation rules for the pre-selected word to form a pronunciation dictionary.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system comprising:

a first dictionary storage unit that contains word pronunciation rules;

a dictionary generation unit connected to the first dictionary storage unit that determines a first set of possible pronunciation rules for a pre-selected word; and

a neural network whose structure accepts word spelling as an input and generates at least one pronunciation rule as an output, wherein the pronunciation rule from the neural network is used within the first set of possible pronunciation rules for the pre-selected word to form a pronunciation dictionary.

2. The computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system of claim 1 wherein the neural network generates pronunciation rules that contain accent pronunciation rules.

3. The computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system of claim 2 wherein the accent pronunciation rules map phonemes to a spelled word.

4. The computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system of claim 2 wherein the accent pronunciation rules map different sets of phonemes to the pre-selected word.

5. The computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system of claim 2 wherein each of the sets of phonemes represent a different speaking accent.

6. The computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system of claim 2 further comprising:

at least one language model that has been constructed from the accent pronunciation rules.

7. The computer-implemented dynamic pronunciation system of claim 2 wherein the language models are hidden Markov language recognition models.