Text parser for use with a text-to-speech converter
First Claim
1. A text processor for a text-to-speech converter comprising:
- a parser for accepting a text stream, for parsing the text stream to detect an unspoken character having a first characteristic, an unspoken character having a second characteristic, and spoken characters, and for not altering the spoken characters in the text stream;
a text generator, responsive to detection of an unspoken character having the first characteristic, for generating a pre-designated text sequence, and for replacing, in the text stream, said unspoken character having said first characteristic with said pre-designated text sequence; and
a speech command generator, responsive to detection of an unspoken character having a second characteristic, for generating pre-designated speech commands.
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Abstract
A text parser for a text-to-speech processor accepts a text stream and parses the text stream to detect non-spoken characters and spoken characters. The spoken characters are passed to the text-to-speech converter and are not altered. A text generator generates pre-designated text sequences in response to non-spoken characters, such as special character sequences or character sequences which match format templates. A speech command generator generates speech commands in response to detecting of non-spoken characters such as non-spoken characters which affect text style, font, underlining, etc. The text-to-speech converter converts spoken text parsed by the parser and text generated by the text generator into speech, the text-to-speech converter being operable in response to speech commands generated by the speech command generator. According to the invention, it is not necessary to pre-process text files in preparation for text-to-speech conversion, and arbitrary files which contain both spoken and non-spoken characters may be converted easily.
294 Citations
82 Claims
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1. A text processor for a text-to-speech converter comprising:
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a parser for accepting a text stream, for parsing the text stream to detect an unspoken character having a first characteristic, an unspoken character having a second characteristic, and spoken characters, and for not altering the spoken characters in the text stream; a text generator, responsive to detection of an unspoken character having the first characteristic, for generating a pre-designated text sequence, and for replacing, in the text stream, said unspoken character having said first characteristic with said pre-designated text sequence; and a speech command generator, responsive to detection of an unspoken character having a second characteristic, for generating pre-designated speech commands. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A text-to-speech processor comprising:
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an input buffer for storing characters; a text-to-speech interface for receiving a text stream and speech commands, whereby characters in the text stream may be converted into speech whose characteristics are controlled by the speech commands; a parser including a pointer that points to characters in said input buffer, said parser for parsing characters at the pointer'"'"'s position to detect unspoken characters and spoken characters, said parser sending spoken characters to said text-to-speech interface without altering the spoken characters; a text generator for generating pre-designated text sequences in response to detection of unspoken characters having a first characteristic, for replacing, in the text stream, said unspoken characters having said first characteristic with said pre-designated text sequences, and for sending the generated text sequences to said text-to-speech interface; means for updating the position of said pointer; and a speech command generator for generating speech commands in response to detection of unspoken characters having a second characteristic, and for sending the generated speech commands to said text-to-speech interface. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
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47. A text-to-speech processing apparatus comprising:
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a processing unit including a computer for executing stored program process steps; a memory for storing plural files which include text and for storing process steps for execution by said processing unit; and a text-to-speech converter for converting characters in a text stream into speech and for executing speech commands; wherein said process steps include steps to select one of the data files stored in said memory, to advance a pointer through the selected data file, to parse characters at the pointer'"'"'s position to detect in the text stream unspoken characters and spoken characters, to feed the spoken characters to said text-to-speech converter, to generate pre-designated text sequences in response to detection of unspoken characters, to replace, within said text stream, said unspoken characters with said pre-designated text sequences, to feed the replaced text stream to said text-to-speech converter, to generate speech commands in response to detection of unspoken characters, and to feed the generated speech commands to said text-to-speech converter for execution thereby, whereby text in the selected data file is converted to speech. - View Dependent Claims (48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72)
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73. A text processor for a text-to-speech converter comprising:
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a parser for accepting a text stream, for parsing the text stream to detect a control character having a pre-defined characteristic, for parsing the text stream to detect spoken characters, and for not altering the spoken characters in the text stream; a look-up table, said look-up table providing a pre-designated text sequence associated with said pre-defined characteristic, wherein said pre-defined characteristic is determined by reference to said look-up table; and a text generator, responsive to detection of said control character having the pre-defined characteristic, for generating said pre-designated text sequence, and for replacing, in the text stream, said control character having said pre-defined characteristic with said pre-designated text sequence. - View Dependent Claims (74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79)
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80. Apparatus for converting text into speech comprising:
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a memory for storing plural format templates, each of said plural format templates having both format data and at least one wild card field, said memory also storing pre-designated text which corresponds to format data for each format template; a parser for parsing a text stream to determine whether a character string in the text stream matches one of the plural format templates, for parsing the text stream to detect spoken characters, and for not altering the spoken characters in the text stream; a text generator responsive to a determination by said parser that a character string in the text stream matches one of the plural templates by replacing, the text stream, format data from the character string which matches format data from said one of the plural templates with corresponding pre-designated text, said text generator leaving unaltered text in the character string corresponding to each wild card field; and a text-to-speech converter for converting the text stream, including the replaced pre-designated text and the unaltered text, into speech. - View Dependent Claims (81, 82)
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Specification