Synthesis unit selection apparatus and method, and storage medium

• US 7,039,588 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2004
• Issued: 05/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Komori, Yasuhiro, Okutani, Yasuo
• Primary Examiner(s): ABEBE, DANIEL DEMELASH
• Application Number:
  US10/928,114
• Publication Number:
  US 20050027532A1
• Time in Patent Office: 610 Days
• Field of Search: 704/200, 704/260, 704/258
• US Class Current: 704/258
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/04 Details of speech synthesis systems, e.g. synthesiser structure or memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/06 Elementary speech units used in speech synthesisers; Concatenation rules

Abstract

Input text data undergoes language analysis to generate prosody, and a speech database is searched for a synthesis unit on the basis of the prosody. A modification distortion of the found synthesis unit, and concatenation distortions upon connecting that synthesis unit to those in the preceding phoneme are computed, and a distortion determination unit weights the modification and concatenation distortions to determine the total distortion. An Nbest determination unit obtains N best paths that can minimize the distortion using the A* search algorithm, and a registration unit determination unit selects a synthesis unit to be registered in a synthesis unit inventory on the basis of the N best paths in the order of frequencies of occurrence, and registers it in the synthesis unit inventory.

Claims

1. A synthesis unit selection apparatus comprising:

n-best obtaining means for obtaining one or more sequences of synthesis unit corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

obtaining means for obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining means to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

selection means for selecting a synthesis unit for a type of synthesis unit, when the synthesis unit appears most frequently in the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining means.

2. A synthesis unit selection apparatus comprising:

n-best obtaining means for obtaining one or more sequences of synthesis unit corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

obtaining means for obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining means to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

selection means for selecting one or more synthesis units for a type of synthesis unit, in an order of frequencies of appearance in the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining means.

3. A synthesis unit selection method comprising:

an n-best obtaining step of obtaining one or more best sequences of synthesis unit corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining step of obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining step to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection step of selecting a synthesis unit for a type of synthesis unit, when the synthesis unit appears most frequently in the plurality of sequences obtained in said obtaining step.

4. A synthesis unit selection method comprising:

an n-best obtaining step of obtaining one or more best sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining step of obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining step to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection step of selecting one or more synthesis units for a type of synthesis unit, in an order of frequencies of appearance in the plurality of sequences obtained in said obtaining step.

5. A computer readable storage medium storing a program that implements the method recited in claim 4.

6. A synthesis unit selection apparatus comprising:

an n-best obtaining unit configured to obtain one or more sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining unit configured to obtain a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining unit to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection unit configured to select a synthesis unit for a type of synthesis unit, when the synthesis unit appears most frequently in the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining unit.

7. A program for implementing a synthesis unit selection method comprising:

an n-best obtaining step module for obtaining one or more sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining step module for obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining step to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection step module for selecting a synthesis unit for a type of synthesis unit, when the synthesis unit appears most frequently in the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining step module.

8. A synthesis unit selection apparatus comprising:

an n-best obtaining unit configured to obtain one or more best sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining unit configured to obtain a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining unit to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection unit configured to select one or more synthesis units for a type of synthesis unit, in an order of frequencies of appearance in the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining unit.

9. A program for implementing a synthesis unit selection method comprising:

an n-best obtaining step module for obtaining one or more sequences of synthesis units corresponding to a phonetic string on the basis of a distortion obtained by concatenating synthesis units;

an obtaining step module for obtaining a plurality of sequences by applying said n-best obtaining step module to a corpus including a plurality of phonetic strings; and

a selection step module for selecting one or more synthesis units for a type of synthesis unit, in an order of frequencies of appearance in the plurality of sequences obtained by said obtaining step module.