Speech synthesis apparatus and method, and storage medium

• US 20060085194A1
• Filed: 12/07/2005
• Published: 04/20/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Canon Ayutthaya Limited (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Ayutthaya Limited (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Komori, Yasuhiro, Okutani, Yasuo
• Application Number:
  US11/295,653
• Publication Number:
  US 20060085194A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/258
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/04 Details of speech synthesis systems, e.g. synthesiser structure or memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/06 Elementary speech units used in speech synthesisers; Concatenation rules

Abstract

Input text data undergoes language analysis to generate prosody, and a speech database is searched for a synthesis unit on the basis of the prosody. A modification distortion of the found synthesis unit, and concatenation distortions upon connecting that synthesis unit to those in the preceding phoneme are computed, and a distortion determination unit weights the modification and concatenation distortions to determine the total distortion. An Nbest determination unit obtains N best paths that can minimize the distortion using the A* search algorithm, and a registration unit determination unit selects a synthesis unit to be registered in a synthesis unit inventory on the basis of the N best paths in the order of frequencies of occurrence, and registers it in the synthesis unit inventory.

Claims

1. A synthesis unit selection apparatus comprising:

n-best obtaining means for obtaining one or more best sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

obtaining means for obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining means to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

selection means for selecting synthesis units on the basis of the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining means.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the distortion comprises at least one of a concatenation distortion and a modification distortion, and the modification distortion is a distortion between a synthesis unit before and after modification.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

text reception means for receiving text data,

wherein the plurality of phonetic strings are included in the text data received by said text reception means.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

registration means for registering the synthesis units selected by said selection means in a synthesis unit inventory in a memory.

5. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said selection means selects a synthesis units on the basis of a weighted sum of the concatenation and modification distortions.

8. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said obtaining means determines the modification distortion by looking up a table that stores the modification distortion.

9. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said obtaining means determines the concatenation distortion by looking up a table that stores the concatenation distortion.

6. (canceled)

7. (canceled)

10. (canceled)

11. A synthesis unit selection method comprising:

an n-best obtaining step of obtaining one or more best sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining step of obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining step to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection step of selecting synthesis units on the basis of the plurality of sequences obtained in said obtaining step.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the distortion comprises at least one of a concatenation distortion and a modification distortion, and the modification distortion is a distortion between a synthesis unit before and after modification.

13. The method according to claim 11, further comprising the step of:

receiving text data,

wherein the plurality of phonetic strings are included in the text data received in said receiving step.

14. The method according to claim 11, further comprising the step of:

registering the synthesis units selected in said selection step in a synthesis unit inventory.

15. The method according to claim 12, wherein in said selection step, a synthesis unit is selected on the basis of a weighted sum of the concatenation and modification distortions.

18. The method according to claim 12, wherein in said obtaining step, the modification distortion is determined by looking up a table that stores the modification distortion.

19. The method according to claim 12, wherein in said obtaining step, the concatenation distortion is determined by looking up a table that stores the concatenation distortion.

21. A computer readable storage medium storing a program that implements the method recited in claim 11.

16. (canceled)

17. (canceled)

20. (canceled)

22. A synthesis unit selection apparatus comprising:

an n-best obtaining unit configured to obtain one or more best sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining unit configured to obtain a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining unit to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection unit configured to select synthesis units on the basis of the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining unit.

23. A program for implementing a synthesis unit selection method comprising:

an n-best obtaining step module for obtaining one or more best sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining step module for obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining step module to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection step module for selecting synthesis units on the basis of the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining step module.