Introduction : In this chapter we take a close look at two important issues in text-to-speech synthesis, namely, prosody modeling and waveform generation, and present a review of popular techniques for the same. These two steps are important for generation of natural sounding speech. At the perceptual level, naturalness in speech is attributed to certain properties of the speech signal related to audible changes in pitch, loudness and syllabic length, collectively called prosody. Acoustically, these changes correspond to the variations in the fundamental frequency(F0), amplitude and duration of speech units [2, 4]. Prosody is important for speech synthesis because it conveys aspects of meaning and structure that are not implicit in the segmental …show more content…
As an example, in the phrase “I feel great about it, we should celebrate!” there are two main prosodic phrases with the boundary at the punctuation mark. Prosodic phrasing involves finding these types of meaningful prosodic phrases, which may or may not be explicit. Prosodic phrasing is important because it not only increases the understandability of synthesized speech but also helps ascribe meaning to certain parts of the synthesized speech, in the same way humans do, by varying prosody. This is done by creating prosodic boundaries at explicit identifiers like punctuation marks, or at certain lexical or grammatical words, known to be phrase delimiters for a language. Several researchers have tried using variants of context-free grammars like augmented transition networks (ATNs), definite-clause grammars (DCGs) and unification grammars (UGs) to model syntactic-prosodic structures in languages and use them to identify the prosodic phrases in the input text [29–31]. Another approach is to use statistical models, with probabilistic predictors like CART decision trees, to predict prosodic phrases based on features such as the parts of speech of the surrounding words, the length of an utterance in number of words, the distance of a potential boundary from the beginning or the end of an utterance and whether surrounding words are accented [32] Even though the rules based on punctuation are good predictors of prosodic phrases, there are many cases where explicit punctuation marks are not present to indicate the phrase boundaries. This problem is prominent in the case of Indian languages where there is little or no use of punctuation marks. Sridhar [33] uses an elementary deterministic rule based phrasing model for Hindi using the content/function word
In an experiment, around 350 Chicagoans, were recorded reading the following paragraph, titled “Too Hot for Hockey”, this script was written specifically to force readers to vocalize vowels “that reveal how closely key sounds resemble the accent's dominant traits” (Wbez). The paragraph is as follows:
Session #1: The speech language pathologist (SLP) modeled and role-played different types of voice tone. According to Jed Baker (2003), when demonstrat...
Seikel, J. A., King, D. W., & Drumright, D. G. (2010). 12. Anatomy & physiology for speech,
This paper explores - with illustrative demonstrations - four queries concerning different aspects of phonemic restoration:
Establishment consisted of teaching the children correct placement of articulators to produce the targeted speech sound across all word positions. The randomized-variable practice began once the child could produce the sound 80% of the time in certain syllables. It usually took children 1-5 sessions to complete the establishment phase. Random teaching tasks such as imitated single syllables, imitated single words, nonimitated single words, imitated two-to-four word phrases, nonimitated two-to-four word phrases, imitated sentences, nonimitated sentences, and storytelling or conversations were selected in the second phase. Participants remained in this phase until they obtained 80% mastery across two
Spanish and English share a similar alphabet, with the Spanish sound system being more concise. Many differences are revealed when comparing the phonologies of the two languages. These differences will influence the speech of Spanish speakers learning English. Speakers may transfer their knowledge of Spanish to English. Understanding these differences is important to the speech-language pathologist in order to realize why some English sounds are more difficult for the Spanish speaker to produce than others (Gorman & Kester, 2001).
The. Romm, Joseph J. -. Language Intelligence. North Charleston : CreateSpace, 2012. 183 - 1. Print.
Three challenges are raised that explain the reason behind why this has been the case. In order to establish empirical value, firstly, there must be a certain “measure” with which prosodic structure can be quantified over multiple languages. Secondly, this method of measurement must be one which can also be applied to music, since the goal of the study is to establish a link between the two. Finally, a broad sample of speech and music must be consulted in order to establish empirical evidence that can be applied universally acros...
Style has been an integral component in the field of linguistics. Linguistic style refers to a person’s speaking pattern, which can include different features such as pace, pitch, intonation, syntactic patterns, etc. Styles of speech is learned, and is often influenced by location, gender, ethnicity, and age. As different cultures and sub-cultures arise, linguistic variations occur and different sociolinguistic styles come into being. Each style can index social meanings such as group membership, personal attributes or beliefs.
Wyse, D. and Goswami, U. (2008) Synthetic phonics and the teaching of reading, British Educational Research Journal, 34 (6), pp.691-710
Soderstrom (2007) found that ID speech is present in most spoken languages. She also found that ID speech is characterized different properties that include prosodic, phonological, and syntactic properties. Prosodic properties of ID speech include higher pitch of the voice, varying the pitch of one’s voice, elongating vowels, and lengthening the pauses between words in a sentence. Many researchers suggest that these prosodic properties grab the infants’ attention and hold their attention. Phonological properties of ID speech include differences in voice onset time distinction and exaggerating certain words in a sentence. Soderstrom found varying opinions on whether or not the phonological properties were actually helpful in language acquisition. Syntactic properties of ID speech include shorte...
“Fasting is an effective and safe method of helping the body detoxify itself.” Quote by: James F. Balch, and Phyllis A. Balch. When you begin fasting, toxins are created in your body, mostly because of food and water. During your fast your body is provided resting time, most importantly, it gives your organs a rest which could potentially prolong your life. To prepare yourself for a fast you should try to eat mostly fruits, and vegetables. Intermittent fasting means fasting for certain hours of a day. While periodic fasting is when you fast for three days or longer for two or more weeks. The description of hunger is when your bodies respond to lack of food, then your body begins searching for food. If you get hungry during your fast it’s advised that you eat watermelon (if you absolutely need it), drink lemon juice or coffee. While giving organs rest and creating longevity, fasting is a controlled medical regimen.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2003). An introduction to language (7th ed.). Boston: Heinle.
Jurafsky, D. & Martin, J. H. (2009), Speech and Language Processing: International Version: an Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition, 2nd ed, Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Syntax is the study of how words are combined to create phrases and causes in the sentences of a specific language (Freeman and Freeman, 2014). Syntax helps us to make clear sentences that “sound right,” where words, phrases, and clauses each serve their function and are correctly ordered to form and communicate a complete sentence with meaning. The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences. Not only does it focus on the correct word order for a language, but it also helps show the relationship between the meaning of a group of words. Without proper syntax, a sentence can be meaningless. It is key to understand that while every language does have certain syntax, the syntax does vary from language to language. It