Method and apparatus for speech processing using morphology and rhyming

• US 5,283,833 A
• Filed: 09/19/1991
• Issued: 02/01/1994
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/1991
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T, Inc.
• Inventors: Church, Kenneth W., Coker, Cecil H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaw, Dale M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tung, Kee M.
• Application Number:
  US07/762,289
• Time in Patent Office: 866 Days
• Field of Search: 381/41, 381/43, 381/44, 381/52, 364/419
• US Class Current: 704/252
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/187 Phonemic context, e.g. pronunciation rules, phonotactical constraints or phoneme n-grams

Abstract

A method and apparatus for natural language processing using morphology and rhyming. The method and apparatus employ a hybrid of dictionary and rule-based approaches for both speech and speech recognition. In an illustrative embodiment of the present invention the pronunciation of a word is determined by rhyming the word, or components of the word, with a reference word, or components of the reference word. In another illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the spelling of a word is determined by rhyming the word, or components of the word, with a reference word, or components of the reference word.

Claims

1. In a machine, a method for determining an orthography of a first word having a known pronunciation, the method comprising the steps of:

locating a reference word which has a known pronunciation and a known orthography such that a subset of said pronunciation of said reference word is a subset of said pronunciation of said first word; and

determining said orthography of said first word by rhyme analogy to said orthography of said reference word.

2. An apparatus for determining an orthography of a first word given its pronunciation, said system comprising:

means for locating a reference word which has a known pronunciation and a known orthography such that a subset of said pronunciation of said reference word is a subset of said pronunciation of said first word; and

means for determining said orthography of said first word by rhyme analogy to said orthography of said reference word.

3. A method for determining an orthography of a first word which has a known pronunciation, the method comprising the steps of:

locating a reference word which has a known pronunciation and a known orthography and which has a trailing pronunciation that is substantially similar to a trailing pronunciation of said first word; and

determining said orthography of said first word by rhyme analogy to said orthography of said reference word.