Stochastic Syllable Accent Recognition

A method of recognizing accents of an inputted speech, comprising the steps of:

• storing, in a memory, training wording data indicating the wording of each of the words in a training text, training speech data indicating characteristic of speech of each of the words in a training speech, and training boundary data indicating whether each of the words is a boundary of a prosodic phrase;
• causing a CPU to input candidates for boundary data candidates indicating whether each of the words in the inputted speech is a boundary of a prosodic phrase, and to calculate a first likelihood that each of the boundary of a prosodic phrase of the words in the inputted text would agree with one of the inputted boundary data candidates, on the basis of inputted-wording data indicating the wording of each word in an inputted text indicating contents of the inputted speech, the training wording data and the training boundary data;
• causing the CPU to input the boundary data candidates, and to calculate a second likelihood, in a case where the inputted speech has a boundary of a prosodic phrase specified by one of the candidate for the boundary data, that speech of each of the words in the inputted text would agree with speech specified by the inputted-speech data, on the basis of inputted-speech data indicating characteristics of speech of each of the words in the inputted speech, the training speech data and the training boundary data;
• and
• causing the CPU to search out one boundary data candidate maximizing a product of the first and second likelihoods, from among the inputted boundary data candidates, and outputs the searched-out boundary data candidate as boundary data for sectioning the inputted text into prosodic phrases.

A program allowing an information processing apparatus to function as a system for recognizing accents of an inputted speech, the program causing the information processing apparatus to function as:

• a storage unit which stores therein, training wording data indicating the wording of each of the words in a training text, training speech data indicating characteristics of speech of each of the words in a training speech, and training boundary data indicating whether each of the words is a boundary of a prosodic phrase;
• a first calculation unit into which boundary data candidates indicating whether each of the words in the inputted speech is a boundary of a prosodic phrase are inputted, and which calculates a first likelihood that each of a boundary of a prosodic phrase of words in an inputted text would agree with one of the inputted boundary data candidates, on the basis of inputted-wording data indicating the wording of each of the words in the inputted text indicating contents of the inputted speech, the training wording data, and the training boundary data;
• a second calculation unit into which the boundary data candidates are inputted, and which calculates a second likelihood that, in a case where the inputted speech has a boundary of a prosodic phrase specified by any of the boundary data candidates, speech of each of the words in the inputted text would agree with speech specified by the inputted-speech data, on the basis of inputted-speech data indicating characteristics of speech of each of the words in the inputted speech, the training speech data and the training boundary data;
• and
• a prosodic phrase searching unit which searches out one boundary data candidate maximizing a product of the first and second likelihoods, from among the inputted boundary data candidates, and which outputs the searched-out boundary data candidate as boundary data for sectioning the inputted text into prosodic phrases.