Text to speech conversion using word concatenation

A method of pre-processing a text file comprising:

• receiving a text file;
• parsing said text file into textual units, where each said parsed textual unit is one of a word, a prefix or a suffix;
• and
• for each one of said parsed textual units, if said one of said parsed textual units corresponds to a stored textual unit in a vocabulary of textual units, adding said stored textual unit to a list.

A text to speech converter comprising:

• means for receiving a list of textual units, where each said textual unit is one of a word, a prefix or a suffix;
• for each textual unit,
• means for locating an associated speech sample in a memory;
• and
• means for appending said associated speech sample to an output signal.

A text to speech converter comprising a processor operable to:

• receive a list of textual units, where each said textual unit is one of a word, a prefix or a suffix;
• for each textual unit,
• locate an associated speech sample in a memory;
• and
• append said associated speech sample to an output signal.

A computer readable medium for providing program control to a processor, said processor included in a text to speech converter, said computer readable medium adapting said processor to be operable to:

• receive a list of textual units, where each said textual unit is one of a word, a prefix or a suffix;
• for each textual unit,
• locate an associated speech sample in a memory;
• and
• append said associated speech sample to an output signal.

A text to speech conversion system comprising:

• a text file pre-processor operable to:
• receive a text file;
• parse said text file into textual units, where each said parsed textual unit is one of a word, a prefix or a suffix;
• and
• for each one of said parsed textual units, if said one of said parsed textual units corresponds to a stored textual unit in a vocabulary of textual units, add said stored textual unit to a list;
• and a textual unit processor operable to:
• receive said list of textual units, where each said textual unit is one of a word, a prefix or a suffix;
• for each textual unit, of said list:
• locate an associated speech sample in a memory;
• and
• append said associated speech sample to an output signal.