Front-end architecture for a multi-lingual text-to-speech system

• US 20040193398A1
• Filed: 03/24/2003
• Published: 09/30/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhao, Yong, Peng, Hu, Chu, Min
• Granted Patent: US 7,496,498 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/3
• 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

A text processing system for processing multi-lingual text for a speech synthesizer includes a first language dependent module for performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on a portion of input text comprising a first language. A second language dependent module performs at least one of text and prosody analysis on a second portion of input text comprising a second language. A third module is adapted to receive outputs from the first and second dependent module and performs prosodic and phonetic context abstraction over the outputs based on multi-lingual text.

Claims

1. A text processing system for processing multi-lingual text for a speech synthesizer, the text processing system comprising:

a first language dependent module for performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on a portion of input text comprising a first language;

a second language dependent module for performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on a second portion of input text comprising a second language; and

a third module adapted to receive outputs from the first and second language dependent modules and perform prosodic and phonetic context abstraction over the outputs based on a multi-lingual text.

2. The text processing system of claim 1 and further comprising a text normalization module for normalizing text for processing by the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module.

3. The text processing system of claim 1 and further comprising a language identifier module adapted to receive multi-lingual text and associate identifiers for portions comprising the first language and for portions comprising the second language.

4. The text processing system of claim 3 and further comprising an integrator module adapted to receive outputs from each module and forward said outputs for processing to another module as appropriate.

5. The text processing system of claim 4 wherein the integrator forwards said outputs to the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module as a function of associated identifiers.

6. The text processing system of claim 5 wherein the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module are adapted to perform morphological analysis.

7. The text processing system of claim 5 wherein the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module are adapted to perform breaking analysis.

8. The text processing system of claim 5 wherein the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module are adapted to perform stress analysis.

9. The text processing system of claim 5 wherein the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module are adapted to perform grapheme-to-phoneme conversion.

10. A method for text processing of multi-lingual text for a speech synthesizer, the method comprising:

receiving input text and identifying portions comprising a first language and portions comprising a second language;

performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on the portions comprising the first language with a first language dependent module and performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on the portions comprising the second language with a second language dependent module; and

receiving outputs from the first and second language dependent modules and performing prosodic and phonetic context abstraction over the outputs based on a multi-lingual text.

11. The method of claim 10 and further comprising normalizing the input text.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein identifying portions comprises associating identifiers to each of the portions.

13. The method of claim 12 and further comprising forwarding portions to the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module as a function of identifiers associated with the portions.

14. The method of claim 10 and further comprising identifying portions of the text as a function of order in the text.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein performing prosodic and phonetic context abstraction comprises outputting a symbolic description of prosody for the multi-lingual text.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein performing prosodic and phonetic context abstraction comprises outputting a numerical description of prosody for the multi-lingual text.

17. A computer readable media having instructions that when executed by a processor perform speech synthesis, the instructions comprising:

a text processing module including;

a first language dependent module for performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on a portion of input text comprising a first language;

a second language dependent module for performing at least one of text and prosody analysis on a second portion of input text comprising a second language;

a third module adapted to receive outputs from the first and second language dependent modules and perform prosodic and phonetic context abstraction over the outputs comprising a multi-lingual text; and

a synthesis module adapted to receive an output from the third module and generate synthesized speech waveforms as a function thereof.

18. The computer readable media claim of 17 wherein the third module provides a symbolic description of prosody for the output and wherein the synthesis module comprises a concatenation module.

19. The computer readable media claim of 17 wherein the third module provides a numeric description of prosody for the output and wherein the synthesis module comprises a generation module.

20. The computer readable media claim of 17 and further comprising a text normalization module for normalizing text for processing by the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module.

21. The computer readable media of claim 17 and further comprising a language identifier module adapted to receive multi-lingual text and associate identifiers for portions comprising the first language and for portions comprising the second language.

22. The computer readable media of claim 21 and further comprising an integrator module adapted to receive outputs from each module and forward said outputs for processing to another module as appropriate.

23. The computer readable media of claim 22 wherein the integrator forwards said outputs to the first language dependent module and the second language dependent module as a function of associated identifiers.