Speech-conversion processing apparatus and method

• US 20070162284A1
• Filed: 01/10/2007
• Published: 07/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alpine Electronics Incorporated (Alps Alpine Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Alpine Electronics Incorporated (Alps Alpine Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Otani, Michiaki
• Granted Patent: US 8,521,532 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination

Abstract

An address character-string structure analyzer analyzes an address character-string structure with respect to address data selected from input data for speech conversion, in accordance with data stored in the address speech-conversion application-rule data storage section. A street speech-conversion structure data element divider divides the address data into structure elements. A street-name speech-conversion pronunciation symbol dictionary is provided. When the structure elements contain a street name, an address speech-conversion data-storage-section selector/reader searches the dictionary and reads pronunciation symbols for the street name. For another structure element, a general dictionary, an individually-created general dictionary, individually-created phonetic-symbol dictionary, or the like is searched and pronunciation symbols are read. When the processing for all elements is completed, speech data is created and reproduced in accordance with general speech data.

Claims

1. A speech-conversion processing apparatus, comprising:

a character-string structure analyzer operable to analyze a character-string structure within address data selected for speech conversion in accordance with speech-conversion rule data;

a pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which speech-conversion pronunciation symbols are associated with character strings of a specific element of the character-string structure;

a data reader operable to search the pronunciation-symbol dictionary for a character string of the specific element, the character string being obtained by dividing the address data into elements based on a result of the analysis performed by the character-string structure analyzer, and to read data associated with the speech-conversion pronunciation symbols;

a speech data creator operable to create speech data for all elements of address character strings in accordance with the data associated with the speech-conversion pronunciation symbols; and

a speech generation section operable to generate speech from the speech data created by the speech data creator.

2. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the specific element of the character-string structure comprises a street name, and the data reader searches a street pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which pronunciation symbols are associated with character strings of streets.

3. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the speech-conversion rule data comprises a state name, a city name, a street name, a road type, a street number.

4. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the speech-conversion rule data comprises a facility name and the pronunciation-symbol dictionary comprises facility name data.

5. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data associated with the speech-conversion pronunciation symbols comprises pronunciation symbols.

6. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data associated with the speech-conversion pronunciation symbols comprises a reference list of speech-conversion pronunciation symbols.

7. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the speech-conversion pronunciation symbols referenced by the reference list are used by a processing section operable to perform speech-conversion processing by using a general dictionary.

8. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the speech-conversion rule data comprises a plurality of pieces of speech-conversion rule data, and the character-string structure analyzer selects one of the plurality of pieces of speech-conversion rule data to analyze the character-string structure.

9. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising a storage unit operable to store the speech-conversion rule data and the character-string structure analyzer searches the storage unit to select one of the plurality of pieces of speech-conversion rule data.

10. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein speech conversion data is searched for and read from at least one of a general dictionary, an individually-created general dictionary in which data associated with pronunciation symbols not stored in the general dictionary is stored, and an individually-created pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which pronunciation symbol data not stored in the general dictionary is stored.

11. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein data is searched for and read from at least one of a general dictionary, an individually-created general dictionary in which data associated with pronunciation symbols not stored in the general dictionary is stored, and an individually-created pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which pronunciation symbol data not stored in the general dictionary is stored, the read data is subjected to speech-conversion processing, and resulting data is generated from the speech generating section in conjunction with the speech-conversion-processed address data.

12. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the specific element of the character-string structure comprises an expressway number;

the pronunciation-symbol dictionary comprises a space-processing pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which expressway numbers having spaces are associated with pronunciation symbols; and

when a space is contained in an expressway number, the data reader reads pronunciation symbols stored in the space-processing pronunciation-symbol dictionary.

13. The speech conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the specific element comprises a state name;

the pronunciation-symbol dictionary comprises a state abbreviation/proper-name conversion dictionary in which state proper-names and corresponding state abbreviations are stored in association with each other; and

in the presence of a state abbreviation, the data reader reads data associated with pronunciation symbols stored in the state abbreviation/proper-name conversion dictionary.

14. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the data associated with the pronunciation symbols comprises pronunciation symbols for a proper name.

15. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the data associated with pronunciation symbols comprises pronunciation symbols for a proper name and pronunciation symbols for the proper name are stored in another dictionary;

and in the presence of a state abbreviation, the data reader searches for a proper name from the state abbreviation/proper-name conversion dictionary and reads pronunciation symbols from the other dictionary in accordance with the proper name.

16. The speech conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which the data associated with the pronunciation symbols is stored comprises a storage section.

17. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which the data associated with the pronunciation symbols is stored comprises data incorporated in speech-conversion processing software.

18. The speech conversion processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the speech conversion processing apparatus is part of a navigation apparatus.

19. A speech-conversion processing method, comprising:

analyzing a character-string structure with respect to address data selected for speech conversion in accordance with address speech-conversion rule data;

storing, in a pronunciation-symbol dictionary, data associated with pronunciation symbols corresponding to character strings within a specific element of the character-string structure;

searching the pronunciation-symbol dictionary for a character string within the specific element, the character string being obtained by dividing the address data into structure data elements in accordance with a result of the analysis of the character-string structure;

reading data associated with pronunciation symbols;

creating speech data for all elements of the character strings in accordance with the read data associated with the pronunciation symbols; and

generating speech from the speech data created.

20. The speech-conversion processing method according to claim 19, wherein the specific element of the character-string structure comprises a street name, and reading data associated with pronunciation symbols further comprises searching a street pronunciation-symbol dictionary in which data associated with pronunciation symbols are stored in relation to character strings of streets.

21. A speech-conversion processing method, comprising:

receiving address data defining an address;

identifying a first and a second similar character string associated with the address using the address data, the first and the second similar character strings being identical;

identifying a first pronunciation data set associated with a first pronunciation of the first similar character string and a second pronunciation data set associated with a second pronunciation of the second similar character string, the first and the second pronunciation data sets being different to facilitate different first and second pronunciations for the first and the second similar character strings; and

generating speech associated with the address using the first and the second pronunciation data sets identified such that the first and the second similar character strings associated with the address are aurally reproduced differently.