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AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorMitsuru Otsuka
Estimating the term…
Statistical data including an average value, a standard deviation, and a minimum value of a phoneme duration of each phoneme is stored in a memory. When speech production time is determined for a phoneme string in a predetermined expiratory paragraph, the total phoneme duration of the phoneme string is set so as to become equal to the speech production time. Based on the set phoneme duration, phonemes are connected and a speech waveform is generated. To set a phoneme duration for each phoneme, a phoneme duration initial value is first set based on an average value, obtained by equally dividing the speech production time by phonemes of the phoneme string, and a phoneme duration range, phoneme. Then, set based on statistical data of each the phoneme duration initial value is adjusted based on the statistical data and the speech production time.
A speech synthesizing apparatus for performing speech synthesis according to an inputted phoneme string, comprising:
A speech synthesizing method of performing speech synthesis according to an inputted phoneme string, comprising the steps of:
A storage medium storing a control program for instructing a computer to perform a speech synthesizing process for performing speech synthesis according to an inputted phoneme string, said control program comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress…
Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems: text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme…
Speech analysis techniques or speech synthesis
Term ended 9 Mar 2019 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for speech synthesis utilizing a rule-based synthesis method, and a storage medium storing computer-readable programs for realizing the speech synthesizing method.
As a method of controlling a phoneme duration, a conventional rule-based speech synthesizing apparatus employs a control-rule method determined based on statistics related to a phoneme duration (Yoshinori SAGISAKA, Youichi TOUKURA, “Phoneme Duration Control for Rule-Based Speech Synthesis,” The Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Communication Engineers of Japan, vol. J67-A, No. 7 (1984) pp 629-636), or a method of employing Categorical Multiple Regression as a technique of multiple regression analysis (Tetsuya SAKAYORI, Shoichi SASAKI, Hiroo KITAGAWA, “Prosodies Control Using Categorical Multiple Regression for Rule-Based Synthesis,” “Report of the 1986 Autumn Meeting of the Acoustic Society of Japan,” 3-4-17 (1986-10)).
However, according to the above conventional technique, it is difficult to specify the speech production time of a phoneme string. For instance, in the control-rule method, it is difficult to determine a control rule that corresponds to a specified speech-production time. Moreover, if input data includes an exception in the control rule method, or if a satisfactory estimation value is not obtained in the method of Categorical Multiple Regression, it becomes difficult to obtain a phoneme duration that sounds natural.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention, and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a construction of a speech synthesizing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a flow structure of the speech synthesizing apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention;
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail in accordance with the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the construction of a speech synthesizing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 101 denotes a CPU which performs various controls in the rule-based speech synthesizing apparatus of the present embodiment. Reference numeral 102 denotes a ROM where various parameters and control programs executed by the CPU 101 are stored. Reference numeral 103 denotes a RAM which stores control programs executed by the CPU 101 and serves as a work area of the CPU 101. Reference numeral 104 denotes an external memory such as hard disk, floppy disk, CD-ROM and the like. Reference numeral 105 denotes an input unit comprising a keyboard, a mouse and so forth. Reference numeral 106 denotes a display for performing various display according to the control of the CPU 101. Reference numeral 6 denotes a speech synthesizer for generating synthesized speech. Reference numeral 107 denotes a speaker where speech signals (electric signals) outputted by the speech synthesizer 6 are converted to sound and outputted.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a flow structure of the speech synthesizing apparatus according to the first embodiment. Functions to be described below are realized by the CPU 101 executing control programs stored in the ROM 102 or executing control programs loaded from the external memory 104 to the RAM 103.