Method and system for preselection of suitable units for concatenative speech
First Claim
1. A triphone preselection cost database for use in speech synthesis, the database generated according to a method comprising:
- 1) selecting a triphone sequence u1-u2-u3;
2) calculating a preselection cost for each 5-phoneme sequence ua-u1-u2-u3-ub, where u2 is allowed to match any identically labeled phoneme in a database and the units ua and ub vary over the entire phoneme universe; and
3) storing a group of the selected triphone sequences exhibiting the lowest costs in a triphone preselection cost database by;
a) determining a plurality of N least cost database units for the particular 5-phoneme context;
b) performing the union of the N least cost units for all combinations of ua and ub;
c) storing the union created in step b) in a triphone preselection cost database; and
d) repeating steps
1)–
3) for each possible triphone sequence.
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Abstract
A system and method for improving the response time of text-to-speech synthesis utilizes “triphone contexts” (i.e., triplets comprising a central phoneme and its immediate context) as the basic unit, instead of performing phoneme-by-phoneme synthesis. The method comprises a method of generating a triphone preselection cost database for use in speech synthesis, the method comprising 1) selecting a triphone sequence u1-u2-u3, 2) calculating a preselection cost for each 5-phoneme sequence ua-u1-u2-u3-ub, where u2 is allowed to match any identically labeled phoneme in a database and the units ua and ub vary over the entire phoneme universe and 3) storing a group of the selected triphone sequences exhibiting the lowest costs in a triphone preselection cost database.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. A triphone preselection cost database for use in speech synthesis, the database generated according to a method comprising:
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1) selecting a triphone sequence u1-u2-u3; 2) calculating a preselection cost for each 5-phoneme sequence ua-u1-u2-u3-ub, where u2 is allowed to match any identically labeled phoneme in a database and the units ua and ub vary over the entire phoneme universe; and 3) storing a group of the selected triphone sequences exhibiting the lowest costs in a triphone preselection cost database by; a) determining a plurality of N least cost database units for the particular 5-phoneme context; b) performing the union of the N least cost units for all combinations of ua and ub; c) storing the union created in step b) in a triphone preselection cost database; and d) repeating steps
1)–
3) for each possible triphone sequence. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A computer-readable medium storing a triphone preselection cost database for use in speech synthesis, the database generated according to a method comprising:
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1) selecting a triphone sequence u1-u2-u3; 2) calculating a preselection cost for each 5-phoneme sequence ua-u1-u2-u3-ub, where u2 is allowed to match any identically labeled phoneme in a database and the units ua and ub vary over the entire phoneme universe; and 3) storing a group of the selected triphone sequences exhibiting the lowest costs in a triphone preselection cost database by; a) determining a plurality of N least cost database units for the particular 5-phoneme context; b) performing the union of the N least cost units for all combinations of ua and ub; c) storing the union created in step b) in a triphone preselection cost database; and d) repeating steps
1)–
3) for each possible triphone sequence. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of generating a triphone preselection cost database for use in speech synthesis, the method comprising:
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1) selecting a triphone sequence u1-u2-u3; 2) calculating a preselection cost for each 5-phoneme sequence ua-u1-u2-u3-ub, where u2 is allowed to match any identically labeled phoneme in a database and the units uaand ub vary over the entire phoneme universe; and 3) storing a group of the selected triphone sequences exhibiting the lowest costs in a triphone preselection cost database by; a) determining a plurality of N least cost database units for the particular 5-phoneme context; b) performing the union of the N least cost units for all combinations of ua and ub; c) storing the union created in step b) in a triphone preselection cost database; and d) repeating steps
1)–
3) for each possible triphone sequence. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
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Specification