Voice synthesizer
First Claim
1. In an electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech including input means responsive to preselected input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes for producing control signals representing the parameters defining said phonemes, timing means responsive to one of said control signals for producing a timing signal that determines the duration of prodution of each of said phonemes, and vocal tract means responsive to said control signals for producing an audio output comprised of said desired sequence of phonemes;
- the improvement comprising;
programmable rate control means responsive to certain of said input data for selectably varying the speech rate of said audio output by producing a speech rate signal in accordance with certain of said input data that is provided to said timing means to vary said timing signal.
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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 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.
19 Citations
4 Claims
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1. In an electronic device for phonetically synthesizing human speech including input means responsive to preselected input data identifying a desired sequence of phonemes for producing control signals representing the parameters defining said phonemes, timing means responsive to one of said control signals for producing a timing signal that determines the duration of prodution of each of said phonemes, and vocal tract means responsive to said control signals for producing an audio output comprised of said desired sequence of phonemes;
- the improvement comprising;
programmable rate control means responsive to certain of said input data for selectably varying the speech rate of said audio output by producing a speech rate signal in accordance with certain of said input data that is provided to said timing means to vary said timing signal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
- the improvement comprising;
Specification