Speech processing device, speech processing method, and computer program product for speech processing

• US 8,650,034 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2011
• Issued: 02/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Yamanaka, Noriko
• Primary Examiner(s): Neway, Samuel G
• Application Number:
  US13/208,464
• Publication Number:
  US 20120029909A1
• Time in Patent Office: 914 Days
• Field of Search: 704258-269
• 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

According to one embodiment, a speech processing device includes an utterance error occurrence determination information storage unit that stores utterance error occurrence determination information; a related word information storage unit that stores related word information including words; an utterance error occurrence determining unit that compares each of the divided words with the condition, gives the error pattern to the word corresponding to the condition, and determines that the word which does not correspond to the condition does not cause the utterance error; and a phoneme string generating unit that generates a phoneme string of the utterance error. The one of the error patterns associated with one of the conditions is the speech error, the utterance error occurrence determining unit further gives an incorrectly spoken word from the related word information, and the phoneme string generating unit generates a phoneme string of the incorrectly spoken word.

Claims

1. A speech processing device comprising:

an utterance error occurrence determination information storage unit configured to store utterance error occurrence determination information in which error patterns are associated with conditions of a word causing an utterance error;

a related word information storage unit configured to store related word information including words, which are likely to cause a speech error, for each word that causes the utterance error, the speech error being an error in which, after a wrong word is completely or partially uttered, a correct word is uttered, or the speech error being an error in which the wrong word is uttered without any correction;

a character string analyzing unit configured to linguistically analyze a character string and divides the character string into word strings;

an utterance error occurrence determining unit configured to compare each of the divided words with the conditions, give the error pattern to a word corresponding to the conditions, and determine that a word which does not correspond to the conditions does not cause the utterance error; and

a phoneme string generating unit configured to generate a phoneme string of the utterance error corresponding to the error pattern in the word having the error pattern given thereto and generate a general phoneme string in the word that is determined not to cause the utterance error, thereby generating a phoneme string of the word strings,

wherein one of the error patterns associated with one of the conditions is the speech error,

when there is a certain word having the speech error as the error pattern, the utterance error occurrence determining unit further gives the certain word an incorrectly spoken word selected from the related word information, and

the phoneme string generating unit generates, as the phoneme string of the utterance error corresponding to the error pattern of the certain word, a phoneme string including at least a part of the incorrectly spoken word and, subsequent to at least the part of the incorrectly spoken word, the certain word.

2. The device according to claim 1,

wherein one of the error patterns associated with one of the conditions is a pause that occurs before or while a word is uttered.

3. The device according to claim 1,

wherein one of the error patterns associated with one of the conditions is restatement in which, after a word is completely uttered or while the word is uttered, the word is uttered again.

4. The device according to claim 1,

wherein the related word information is a group including words that are related to each other in terms of meaning or a group including words that are related to each other in terms of pronunciation.

5. The device according to claim 1,

wherein the conditions indicate a part of speech of the word that causes the utterance error.

6. The device according to claim 1, further comprising:

an utterance error occurrence probability information storage unit configured to store utterance error occurrence probability, which is a probability of the word causing the utterance error,

wherein the utterance error occurrence determining unit determines whether each word causes the utterance error, on the basis of the utterance error occurrence probability.

7. The device according to claim 6,

wherein the utterance error occurrence probability depends on the frequency of use of the word causing the utterance error, the degree of difficulty in meaning, or a difficulty in utterance during reading.

8. The device according to claim 6,

wherein, when the word has caused the utterance error, the utterance error occurrence determining unit determines that the word does not cause the utterance error any further.

9. The device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a context information storage unit configured to store context information indicating whether the word causes the utterance error on the basis of a kind of words described before or after the word that causes the utterance error,

wherein the utterance error occurrence determining unit determines whether each word causes the utterance error on the basis of the context information.

10. The device according to claim 6, further comprising:

a context information storage unit configured to store context information indicating whether the word causes the utterance error on the basis of a kind of words described before or after the word that causes the utterance error,

wherein the utterance error occurrence determining unit determines whether each word causes the utterance error on the basis of the context information.

11. The device according to claim 6, further comprising:

a utterance error occurrence adjusting unit configured to adjust the number of occurrences of the utterance error in the entire character string.

12. The device according to claim 11,

wherein the utterance error occurrence adjusting unit adjusts the number of occurrences of the utterance error so as to be equal to or less than a predetermined value.

13. The device according to claim 11,

wherein, when a gap between the word in which the utterance error occurs and a word in which the next utterance error occurs is less than a predetermined value, the utterance error occurrence adjusting unit adjusts the number of occurrences of the utterance error such that the next utterance error does not occur.

14. The device according to claim 11,

wherein, when the utterance error occurrence probability is equal to or less than a predetermined value, the utterance error occurrence adjusting unit adjusts the number of occurrences of the utterance error such that the utterance error does not occur.

15. The device according to claim 3,

wherein, when generating a phoneme string of the restatement, the phoneme string generating unit generates a phoneme string in which the word which is uttered again is emphasized.

16. The device according to claim 1,

wherein, when the correct word is uttered due to the speech error after the wrong word is completely uttered or while the wrong word is uttered, the phoneme string generating unit generates a phoneme string in which the correct word is uttered so as to be emphasized.

17. The device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a voice synthesis unit configured to convert the phoneme string of the word strings into voice data.

18. A speech processing method comprising:

analyzing that includes linguistically analyzing a character string so as to divide the character string into word strings;

determining an utterance error occurrence by comparing each of the divided words with a condition of an utterance error occurrence determination information stored in an utterance error occurrence determination information storage unit, the utterance error occurrence determination information being associated with error patterns for conditions of a word causing an utterance error, giving the error pattern to a word corresponding to the conditions, and determining that a word which does not correspond to the conditions does not cause the utterance error; and

generating, by a phoneme string generating unit, a phoneme string by generating a phoneme string of the utterance error corresponding to the error pattern in the word having the error pattern given thereto, generating a general phoneme string in the word that is determined not to cause the utterance error, and thereby generating a phoneme string of the word strings,

wherein one of the error patterns associated with one of the conditions is a speech error, the speech error being an error in which, after a wrong word is completely or partially uttered, a correct word is uttered, or the speech error being an error in which the wrong word is uttered without any correction,

at the determining the utterance error occurrence, when there is a certain word having the speech error as the error pattern, an incorrectly spoken word selected from related word information is further given to the certain word, the related word information being stored in a related word information storage unit that stores the related word information including words, which are likely to cause the speech error, for each word that causes the utterance error, and

at the generating, as the phoneme string of the utterance error corresponding to the error pattern of the certain word, a phoneme string including at least a part of the incorrectly spoken word and, subsequent to at least the part of the incorrectly spoken word, the certain word.

19. A computer program product for speech processing having a non-transitory computer readable medium including programmed instructions, wherein the instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform:

analyzing that includes linguistically analyzing a character string so as to divide the character string into word strings;

determining an utterance error occurrence by comparing each of the divided words with a condition of an utterance error occurrence determination information stored in an utterance error occurrence determination information storage unit, the utterance error occurrence determination information being associated with error patterns for conditions of a word causing an utterance error, giving the error pattern to a word corresponding to the conditions, and determining that a word which does not correspond to the conditions does not cause the utterance error; and

generating a phoneme string by generating a phoneme string of the utterance error corresponding to the error pattern in the word having the error pattern given thereto, generating a general phoneme string in the word that is determined not to cause the utterance error, and thereby generating a phoneme string of the word strings,

wherein one of the error patterns associated with one of the conditions is a speech error, the speech error being an error in which, after a wrong word is completely or partially uttered, a correct word is uttered, or the speech error being an error in which the wrong word is uttered without any correction,

at the determining the utterance error occurrence, when there is a certain word having the speech error as the error pattern, an incorrectly spoken word selected from related word information is further given to the certain word, the related word information being stored in a related word information storage unit that stores the related word information including words, which are likely to cause the speech error, for each word that causes the utterance error, and

at the generating, as the phoneme string of the utterance error corresponding to the error pattern of the certain word, a phoneme string including at least a part of the incorrectly spoken word and, subsequent to at least the part of the incorrectly spoken word, the certain word.