Apparatus and method for speech processing using paralinguistic information in vector form

A speech processing apparatus, comprising:

• an acoustic feature extracting module operable to extract a prescribed acoustic feature from an utterance unit of an input speech data;
• a paralinguistic information output module operable to receive the prescribed acoustic feature from said acoustic feature extracting module and to output a value corresponding to each of a predetermined plurality of types of paralinguistic information as a function of the acoustic feature;
• and
• an utterance intention inference module operable to infer utterance intention of a speaker related to said utterance unit of said input utterance data, based on a set of values output from said paralinguistic information output module.

A speech processing apparatus, comprising:

• an acoustic feature extracting module operable to extract, for each of prescribed utterance units included in a speech corpus, a prescribed acoustic feature from acoustic data of the utterance unit;
• a paralinguistic information output module operable to receive said acoustic feature extracted for each of said prescribed utterance units from said acoustic feature extracting module, and to output, for each of a predetermined plurality of types of paralinguistic information labels, a value as a function of said acoustic feature;
• and
• a paralinguistic information addition module operable to generate a speech corpus with paralinguistic information, by additionally attaching a value calculated for each of said plurality of types of paralinguistic information labels by said paralinguistic information output module to the acoustic data of the utterance unit.

A speech processing apparatus, comprising:

• a speech corpus including a plurality of speech waveform data items each including a value for each of a prescribed plurality of types of paralinguistic information labels, a prescribed acoustic feature including a phoneme label, and speech waveform data;
• waveform selecting module operable to select, when a prosodic synthesis target of speech synthesis and a paralinguistic information target vector having an element of which value is determined in accordance with an intention of utterance are applied, a speech waveform data item having such acoustic feature and paralinguistic information vector that satisfy a prescribed condition determined by said prosodic synthesis target and said paralinguistic information target vector, from said speech corpus;
• and
• a waveform connecting module operable to output a speech waveform by connecting the speech waveform data included in the speech waveform data item selected by said waveform selecting module in accordance with said synthesis target.

A speech processing method, comprising the steps of:

• extracting a prescribed acoustic feature from an utterance unit of an input speech data;
• applying said prescribed acoustic feature extracted in said step of extracting, to a paralinguistic information output module operable to output a value for each of a predetermined plurality of types of paralinguistic information as a function of the acoustic feature, to obtain a value corresponding to each of said plurality of types of paralinguistic information;
• and
• inferring, based on a set of values obtained in said step of obtaining, intention of utterance by a speaker related to said utterance unit of said input speech data.

A speech processing method, comprising the steps of:

• extracting, for each of prescribed utterance units included in a speech corpus, a prescribed acoustic feature from acoustic data of the utterance unit;
• receiving said acoustic feature extracted for each of said prescribed utterance units in said extracting step, and calculating, for each of a predetermined plurality of types of paralinguistic information labels, a value as a function of said acoustic feature;
• and
• generating a speech corpus with paralinguistic information, by attaching, for every said prescribed utterance unit, the value calculated for each of said plurality of types of paralinguistic information labels calculated in said calculating step to acoustic data of the utterance unit.

A speech processing method, comprising the steps of:

• preparing a speech corpus including a plurality of speech waveform data items each including a value corresponding to each of a prescribed plurality of types of paralinguistic information labels, a prescribed acoustic feature including a phoneme label, and speech waveform data;
• in response to a prosodic synthesis target of speech synthesis and a paralinguistic information target vector having an element of which value is determined in accordance with utterance intention, selecting a speech waveform data item having such acoustic feature and paralinguistic information vector that satisfy a prescribed condition determined by said prosodic synthesis target and said paralinguistic information target vector, from said speech corpus;
• and
• connecting speech waveform data included in the speech waveform data item selected in said selecting step in accordance with said synthesis target, to form a speech waveform.