Speech synthesis apparatus and method
First Claim
1. Speech synthesis apparatus comprising:
- a dialog-style selection arrangement responsive to at least one factor affecting intelligibility of speech output as heard by a user, to select a dialog style intended to provide at least a minimum level of intelligibility;
a speech-application text provider for providing text-form utterances for a current speech application in the dialog style selected by the selection arrangement; and
a text-to-speech converter for converting text-form utterances received from the speech-application text provider into speech form.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A speech synthesiser is provided with a dialog-style selection arrangement responsive to a factor affecting intelligibility of speech output by the apparatus to select a dialog style intended to provide at least a minimum level of intelligibility of speech output by the synthesiser. The selected dialog style is used by a speech-application text provider when generating text-form utterances for a current speech application, these text-form utterances then being converted into speech form by a text-to-speech converter. The factor affecting intelligibility may be a measure of the intelligibility of the speech-form output or an environmental factor such as background noise in the user'"'"'s environment.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. Speech synthesis apparatus comprising:
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a dialog-style selection arrangement responsive to at least one factor affecting intelligibility of speech output as heard by a user, to select a dialog style intended to provide at least a minimum level of intelligibility;
a speech-application text provider for providing text-form utterances for a current speech application in the dialog style selected by the selection arrangement; and
a text-to-speech converter for converting text-form utterances received from the speech-application text provider into speech form. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12)
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11. A method of generating speech output for a current speech application comprising the steps of:
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(a) in dependence on at least one factor affecting intelligibility of speech output as heard by a user, dynamically selecting a dialog style intended to provide at least a minimum level of intelligibility;
(b) providing text-form utterances for the current speech application in the dialog style selected in step (a); and
(c) converting the text-form utterances into speech form. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification