Method and apparatus for recognizing spoken words in a speech signal

US5613034A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• U.S. Philips Corporation · US

Inventors

• Hermann Ney · Hamburg, DE
• Volker Steinbiss · Aachen, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 26, 1994
• Grant date: Mar 18, 1997
• Expiry date: Sep 26, 2014

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G10L15/197
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

In the recognition of coherent speech, language models are favourably used to increase the reliability of recognition, which models, for example, take into account the probabilities of word combinations, especially of word pairs. For this purpose, a language model value corresponding to this probability is added at boundaries between words. In several recognition methods, for example, when the vocabulary is built up from phonemes in the shape of a tree, it is not known at the start of the continuation of a hypothesis after a word end which word will actually follow, so that a language model value cannot be taken into account until at the end of the next word. Measures are given for achieving this in such a manner that as far as possible the optimal preceding word or the optimal preceding word sequence is taken into account for the language model value without the necessity of constructing a copy of the searching tree for each and every simultaneously ending preceding word sequence.