Voice synthesizer
First Claim
1. In an electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech by synthetically generating and combining the basic phonetic sounds in speech including input means responsive to successive input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes for producing control signals comprising the parameters electronically defining the articulation patterns of said desired sequence of phonemes, a vocal source adapted to produce a voiced excitation signal having associated therewith a fundamental frequency, and output means responsive to said control signals for electronically forming the articulation patterns of said desired sequence of phonemes and further responsive to said voiced excitation signal for producing said desired sequence of phonemes;
- the improvement comprising;
inflection control means connected to said vocal source for automatically varying the fundamental frequency of said voiced excitation signal in accordance with certain of said control signals produced by said input means.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A voice synthesizer that is responsive to sequences of digital input command words to phonetically synthesize human speech. The system includes control circuits that are responsive to the input command words to introduce an articulated silent phoneme into the speech pattern, vary the duration of each phoneme produced, as well as to vary the overall rate and volume of the speech generated. In addition, the design utilizes inflection assignment derived from control signals controlling phoneme articulation, for individual phonemes and also employs a glottal waveform which is more representative of human glottis action. The invention also incorporates resonant suppression into the vocal tract to simulate the dampening effect due to the opening of the glottis, and provides closer simulation of human energy content at higher frequencies to improve the quality of the speech generated.
41 Citations
66 Claims
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1. In an electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech by synthetically generating and combining the basic phonetic sounds in speech including input means responsive to successive input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes for producing control signals comprising the parameters electronically defining the articulation patterns of said desired sequence of phonemes, a vocal source adapted to produce a voiced excitation signal having associated therewith a fundamental frequency, and output means responsive to said control signals for electronically forming the articulation patterns of said desired sequence of phonemes and further responsive to said voiced excitation signal for producing said desired sequence of phonemes;
- the improvement comprising;
inflection control means connected to said vocal source for automatically varying the fundamental frequency of said voiced excitation signal in accordance with certain of said control signals produced by said input means. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
- the improvement comprising;
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11. An electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech comprising:
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input means responsive to input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes to produce control signals representing the parameters defining said desired sequence of phonemes; a vocal source adapted to produce a voiced excitation signal having a waveform of varying magnitude; vocal tract means responsive to said voiced excitation signal and said control signals to produce said desired sequence of phonemes including a plurality of resonant filters having predetermined bandwidths associated therewith adapted to produce the resonant formants in the frequency spectrums of said phonemes; and suppression means for simulating the suppression of formant resonances in the human vocal tract due to the opening of the glottis by varying the bandwidths of at least some of said plurality of resonant filters in accordance with the magnitude of said voiced excitation signal. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. An electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech comprising:
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input means responsive to input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes to produce control signals representing the parameters defining said sequence of phonemes; and vocal tract means responsive to said control signals to produce said desired sequence of phonemes including a plurality of resonant filters that produce the resonant formants in the frequency spectrums of said desired sequence of phonemes, said plurality of resonant filters including three variable resonant filters each tunable under the control of one of said control signals to produce the first three formants in said frequency spectrums and a fourth variable resonant filter tunable under the control of one of said control signals that tunes one of said first three variable resonant filters to produce the fourth formant in said frequency spectrums. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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36. An electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech comprising:
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a vocal source adapted to produce a voiced excitation signal; a fricative source adapted to produce an unvoiced excitation signal; input means responsive to the receipt of input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes to produce a plurality of control signals representing the parameters defining the phonemes identified by said input data including a first control signal for controlling the amplitude of said voiced excitation signal and a second control signal for controlling the amplitude of said unvoiced excitation signal; vocal tract means responsive to said voiced and unvoiced excitation signals and said control signals to produce an audio output comprised of said desired sequence of phonemes integrated into intelligible human speech; and amplitude control means for varying the relative overall amplitude of said audio output by modulating a preselected signal characteristic of said first and second control signals. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47)
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48. An electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech including:
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input means responsive to input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes to produce control signals representing the parameters defining said phonemes; timing means responsive to one of said control signals to produce a timing signal that determines the duration of production of each of said phonemes; vocal tract means responsive to said control signals to produce an audio output comprised of said desired sequence of phonemes; and first rate control means responsive to said input data for varying phoneme timing by producing a speech rate signal in accordance with said input data that is provided to said timing means to vary said timing signal, said first rate control means including second rate control means responsive to predetermined input data to vary the relative overall speech rate of said audio output while preserving the relative variations in the intervals of phoneme production that occur from phoneme to phoneme under the control of said one control signal by uniformly varying a preselected signal characteristic of said speech rate signal. - View Dependent Claims (49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 66)
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54. An electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech including:
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input means responsive to input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes to produce a plurality of control signals representing the parameters defining said desired sequence of phonemes; a vocal source adapted to produce a voiced excitation signal; a fricative source adapted to produce an unvoiced excitation signal; vocal tract means responsive to said voiced and unvoiced excitation signals to produce an audio output comprised of said sequence of phonemes in accordance with said control signals; and circuit means responsive to said input data for causing said vocal tract means to produce a silent phoneme by preventing said voiced and unvoiced excitation signals from exciting said vocal tract means, said vocal tract means being adapted to form in accordance with said control signals the articulation pattern of the succeeding phoneme indentified by said input data during production of said silent phoneme. - View Dependent Claims (55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60)
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61. For an electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech including a vocal source adapted to produce a voiced excitation signal and a vocal tract responsive to said voiced excitation signal to substantially produce the frequency spectrums of a desired sequence of phonemes;
high pole compensation means adapted to add a relatively high fixed-frequency formant to said voiced excitation signal to increase the energy content of said voiced excitation signal at relatively high frequencies. - View Dependent Claims (62, 63, 64, 65)
Specification