Electronic toy for forming sentences

• US 5,495,557 A
• Filed: 08/23/1994
• Issued: 02/27/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hyman, Greg, Lawrence Reiner
• Original Assignee: Hyman, Greg, Lawrence Reiner
• Inventors: Hyman, Greg, Reiner, Lawrence
• Primary Examiner(s): MacDonald, Allen R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Doerrler, Michelle
• Application Number:
  US08/294,436
• Time in Patent Office: 553 Days
• Field of Search: 446/143, 446/175, 446/397, 369/63, 369/66, 434/167, 434/172, 434/169, 395/2.79-2.81
• US Class Current: 704/272
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/027 Concept to speech synthesisers; Generation of natural phrases from machine-based concepts generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text G10L13/08

Abstract

An electronic toy which enunciates words or phrases corresponding to sentence parts and a complete sentence by enunciating sounds corresponding to words of phrases selected from a plurality of addresses of a first memory representing audio data corresponding to such words or phrases arranged in each of a plurality of categories. The selected words or phrases correspond to different parts of speech, such as subjects, verbs, adjectives, direct objects and prepositional phrases. The selections are assembled in the second memory and enunciated. The toy may resemble a book in appearance and has printed lettering and color graphics corresponding to the words or phrases.

Claims

1. An electronic toy comprising:

first memory means arrayed in a plurality of categories, each category corresponding to a part of a sentence and having a plurality of addresses, each address storing a respective and different audio data corresponding to the category sentence part;

a respective selectively activated selecting means associated with each category of said first memory means to be activated for selecting an address of the category with which the activated selecting means is associated;

means for enunciating an audio representation of the audio data of an address of a category of said first memory means in response to selection of the address by the selecting means associated with the category;

second memory means for storing each address as selected from the categories of said first memory means; and

means for operating said enunciating means to also produce an audio representation of the audio data corresponding to the addresses of said first memory means categories stored in said second memory means.

2. An electronic toy as in claim 1, wherein a said selecting means of at least one category includes means for randomly selecting the first memory means address of the category associated with the said selecting means.

3. An electronic toy as in claim 1, wherein a said selecting means of at least one category includes means for cycling through in a predetermined order each of the first memory means addresses of said at least one category upon successive activation of the selecting means associated with said at least one category.

4. An electronic toy as in claim 1, wherein the categories containing the addresses include at least one category selected from a group consisting of subjects, adverbs, verbs, adjectives, direct objects, indirect objects and prepositional phrases.

5. An electronic toy as in claim 1, further comprising a housing containing all of said means;

and

indicia on said housing grouped in categories with a representation corresponding to each of the sentence parts of each of the addresses of a respective category, the indicia displayed as readable words or phrases.

6. An electronic toy as in claim 5, further comprising a plurality of graphic images on the housing each corresponding to an associated one of the indicia.

7. An electronic toy as in claim 5, wherein the housing resembles a book having a front cover element with a left side page, a back cover element with a right side page, and a book binding connecting the front and back cover elements.

8. An electronic toy as in claim 1, further comprising a housing containing all of said means;

and

each said selecting means comprising a respective switch means displaceable between operative and inoperative positions being moved to said operative position for effecting the selecting of an address of said first memory means and being biased to be displaced into the inoperative position.

9. An electronic toy as in claim 1 wherein said operating means operates said enunciating means to produce an audio representation of the audio data of the selected first memory means address of each of the categories stored in said second memory means.

10. An electronic toy as in claim 9 wherein the selecting means associated with each category operates upon successive activation to sequentially cycle through the addresses of said first memory means of the corresponding category to produce sequential enunciation of the audio data of each of the selected addresses and sequential storing of each of the selected addresses in said second memory means.

11. An electronic toy as in claim 9 wherein said second memory means continues to store a selected address of a said first memory means category as selected by the activation means associated with a category until the address stored is changed by further activation of a selecting means associated with the category, said operating means upon activation operates said enunciating means to produce an audio representation of the audio data of the first memory means address of each of the categories as stored in said second memory means as updated for any category by the further activation of a selecting means for each category and producing an audio representation of the first memory means address already stored in said second memory means of a category whose selecting means was not activated prior to the operation of said operating means to cause said enunciation means to enunciate the audio data corresponding to the addresses stored in said second memory means.

12. An electronic toy as set forth in claim 1 wherein said operating means operates said enunciating means to produce an audio representation of the audio data of each of the first memory means addresses stored in said second memory in a predetermined sequence without regard to the sequence of the activation of the selecting means associated with each of the categories.

13. An electronic toy as in claim 1 wherein said first memory means has a predetermined number of addresses for each category.

14. (Amended) An electronic toy as in claim 1 wherein the selecting means associated with at least one of the categories upon successive activation sequentially cycles through the addresses of the corresponding category of said first memory means associated with the activated selecting means and produces sequential enunciation of the audio data of the sequentially selected addresses and sequential storing of the sequentially selected addresses in said second memory means.

15. An electronic toy as in claim 1 wherein the audio data to be reproduced is a sentence, and said operating means produces an audio representation of the audio data corresponding to the addresses of said first memory means stored in said second memory means to enunciate a complete sentence.

16. An electronic toy as set forth in claim 1 wherein a selecting means for each of said categories includes means for randomly selecting an address of the category of said first memory means with which a selecting means is associated and which randomly selected address is stored in said second memory means and the audio data corresponding thereto is enunciated.