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AssigneeMatsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
InventorBeatrix Zimmermann
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A synthetic voice system which can convert typed text to speech calculates the intonation presented by the input text. The system utilizes a pitch (F0) module to calculate an F0 value for the beginning and middle of each phoneme. The following procedure is used. The F0 value for all the stressed syllables are calculated along with all F0 values for the syllables preceding a silence. The calculated F0 values for the syllables are placed on their associated phonemes. The valleys between the stressed syllables are approximated. When the last syllable of a declarative sentence is stressed and in WH question and exclamatory sentences, the FO fall is controlled to be gradual at first and then sharper toward the last utterance. When that last syllable of the declarative sentence is not stressed, the fall is sharper at first and then more gradual toward the last utterance. In "yes/no" questions, there is a final rise after the last stressed syllable of the sentence. The last stressed syllable is assigned a low FO value which is approximately equal to the average FO values of the speaker. To prevent an unnatural sounding, sharp FO rise in these questions when the last accented syllable occurs on the last syllable of the sentence, the final FO rise is lower than that of the "yes/no" question when the last accented syllable does not occur on the last stressed syllable of the sentence.
In a phoneme-based test-to-speech synthetic voice system having means for generating spoke sentences composed of a plurality of syllables, wherein some of said syllables are stressed, and wherein some of said syllables precede periods of silence, having means for determining whether each of the sentences is declarative, exclamatory, or a question, and having a pitch module for determining FO values representative of pitch for assigning to selected portions of selected phonemes of stressed syllables, the improvement in said pitch module of said system comprising:
In a phoneme-based text-to-speech synthetic voice system having means for generating spoken sentences composed of a plurality of syllables, wherein some of said syllables are stressed, and wherein some of said syllables precede periods of silence, having means for determining whether each of the sentences is declarative, exclamatory, or a question, and having a pitch module for determining FO values representative of pitch for assigning to selected portions of selected phonemes of stressed syllables, the improvement in said pitch module of said system comprising:
A text-to-speech synthetic voice system comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.