Grapheme-to-phoneme conversion of digit strings using weighted finite state transducers to apply grammar to powers of a number basis

• US 5,781,884 A
• Filed: 11/22/1996
• Issued: 07/14/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Sproat, Richard William, Riley, Michael Dennis, Pereira, Fernando Carlos Neves
• Primary Examiner(s): Hudspeth, David R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Storm, Donald L.
• Application Number:
  US08/755,041
• Time in Patent Office: 599 Days
• Field of Search: 395/2.75, 395/2.67, 395/2.69, 395/2.78, 395/2.09, 395/2.12, 395/2.13, 395/2.66, 395/2.64, 395/2.7, 395/2.74, 395/2.76, 395/2.77, 704/266, 704/258, 704/260, 704/269, 704/203, 704/204, 704/257, 704/255, 704/200, 704/9
• US Class Current: 704/260
• 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

Abstract

The present invention provides a method of expanding a string of one or more digits to form a verbal equivalent using weighted finite state transducers. The method provides a grammatical description that expands the string into a numeric concept represented by a sum of powers of a base number system, compiles the grammatical description into a first weighted finite state transducer, provides a language specific grammatical description for verbally expressing the numeric concept, compiles the language specific grammatical description into a second weighted finite state transducer, composes the first and second finite state transducers to form a third weighted finite state transducer from which the verbal equivalent of the string can be synthesized, and synthesizes the verbal equivalent from the third weighted finite state transducer.

Claims

1. A method of expanding a string of one or more digits to form a verbal equivalent, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a grammatical description that expands the string into a numeric concept represented by a sum of powers of a base number system;

(b) compiling said grammatical description into a first weighted finite state transducer (WFST);

(c) providing a language specific grammatical description for verbally expressing the numeric concept;

(d) compiling the language specific grammatical description into a second WFST;

(e) composing said first and second WFSTs to form a third WFST from which the verbal equivalent of the string can be synthesized; and

(f) synthesizing the verbal equivalent from the third WFST.