Prosodic Speech Text Codes and Their Use in Computerized Speech Systems
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Abstract
Disclosed are a method of, and system for, acoustically coding text for use in the synthesis of speech from the text, the method comprising marking the text to be spoken with one or more graphic symbols to indicate to a speaker a desired prosody to impart to the spoken text to convey expressive meaning. The markups can comprise grapheme-phoneme pairs each comprising a visible prosodic-indicating grapheme employable with written text and a corresponding digital phoneme functional in the digital domain. The invention is useful in the generation of appealing, humanized machine speech for a wide range of applications, including voice mail systems, electronically enabled appliances, automobiles, computers, robotic assistants, games and the like, in spoken books and magazines, drama and other entertainment.
38 Citations
37 Claims
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1-17. -17. (canceled)
- 18. A method of marking up text for use in the synthesis of speech from the text, the method comprising marking the text to be spoken with one or more graphic symbols to indicate to a speaker desired speech characteristics to be employed in speaking the text wherein the graphic symbols comprise acoustic codes indicating a desired prosody to be imparted to the spoken text by the speaker.
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37. A speech synthesizer controlled by acoustic coding variables input to the speech synthesizer wherein the acoustic coding variables correspond to prosodic specifications employed to generate recorded human speech having a desired prosodic pronunciation and wherein the recorded human speech is employed to provide a synthesized speech output embodying the desired prosodic pronunciation.
Specification