Assigning meanings to utterances in a speech recognition system

• US 7,478,037 B2
• Filed: 10/13/2006
• Issued: 01/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/1992
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Strong, Robert Don
• Primary Examiner(s): MCFADDEN, SUSAN IRIS
• Application Number:
  US11/580,461
• Publication Number:
  US 20070033038A1
• Time in Patent Office: 823 Days
• Field of Search: 704/9
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

Assigning meanings to spoken utterances in a speech recognition system. A plurality of speech rules is generated, each of the speech rules comprising a language model and an expression associated with the language model. At one interval (e.g. upon the detection of speech in the system), a current language model is generated from each language model in the speech rules for use by a recognizer. When a sequence of words is received from the recognizer, a set of speech rules which match the sequence of words received from the recognizer is determined. Each expression associated with the language model in each of the set of speech rules is evaluated, and actions are performed in the system according to the expressions associated with each language model in the set of speech rules.

Claims

1. A machine implemented method comprising:

determining a set of possible operating contexts of a data processing system;

generating for each possible operating context in the set of possible operating contexts a language model for use in recognizing a spoken set of words received through an audio input.

2. The machine implemented method of claim 1 wherein determining a set of possible operating contexts comprises determining a context for each executing application.

3. The machine implemented method of claim 1 wherein determining a set of possible operating contexts comprises determining a state for an operating system.

4. The machine implemented method of claim 1 wherein the language model comprises a set of speech rules to recognize sequences of words as having meaning within each possible operating context.

5. The machine implemented method of claim 4 further comprising:

determining a speech rule which matches the spoken sequence of words by searching a language model.

6. A machine readable medium containing executable program instructions which, when executed, cause a data processing system to perform a method comprising:

determining a set of possible operating contexts of a data processing system;

generating for each possible operating context in the set of possible operating contexts a language model for use in recognizing a spoken set of words received through an audio input.

7. The machine readable medium of claim 6 wherein determining a set of possible operating contexts comprises determining a state for an operating system.

8. The machine readable medium of claim 6 wherein the language model comprises a set of speech rules to recognize sequences of words as having meaning within each possible operating context.

9. The machine readable medium of claim 8 further comprising:

determining a speech rule which matches the spoken sequence of words by searching a language model.

10. The machine readable medium of claim 6 wherein determining a set of possible operating contexts comprises determining a context for each executing application.

11. A machine comprising:

means for determining a set of possible operating contexts of a data processing system;

means for generating for each possible operating context in the set of possible operating contexts a language model for use in recognizing a spoken set of words received through an audio input.

12. The machine of claim 11 wherein the language model comprises a set of speech rules to recognize sequences of words as having meaning within each possible operating context.

13. The machine of claim 12 further comprising:

means for determining a speech rule which matches the spoken sequence of words by searching a language model.

14. The machine of claim 11 wherein determining a set of possible operating contexts comprises determining a context for each executing application.

15. The machine of claim 11 wherein determining a set of possible operating contexts comprises determining a state for an operating system.