A monophone speech generation system
Date
2007
Authors
Klompje G.
Niesler T.R.
Journal Title
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Abstract
Current speech synthesis systems generally require large and carefully annotated speech corpora for their development. However, for many languages these resources are not available. This paper describes a speech generation algorithm based on monophone subword units for minimal reliance on such databases. The system is based on the source-filter speech production framework, and includes a linear prediction based vocal tract model as well as an excitation model. An interpolation algorithm is presented to allow coarticulation between monophone units to be modelled. The excitation model includes a method for dealing with voiced and partiallyvoiced sounds based on a Gaussianity measure applied to the excitation spectrum. Promising first results were obtained when evaluating the intelligibility of the developed system's South African English speech output using the modified rhyme test and semantically unpredictable sentences.
Description
Keywords
Co-articulation, Excitation models, Excitation spectrum, Gaussianity, Interpolation algorithms, Linear prediction, Modified rhyme test, Multilingual speech synthesis, Speech corpora, Speech generation, Speech output, Speech production, Speech synthesis system, Subword units, Text to speech, Vocal tract models, Speech synthesis, Speech intelligibility
Citation
Transactions of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers
98
4
98
4