Patent · US Active

Generating objectively evaluated sufficiently natural synthetic speech from text by using selective paraphrases

US8015011B2 · kind B2 · utility

306Cited by
7References
12Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 30, 2008
Grant dateSep 6, 2011
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 8, 2030

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG10L13/07
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A synthetic speech system includes a phoneme segment storage section for storing multiple phoneme segment data pieces; a synthesis section for generating voice data from text by reading phoneme segment data pieces representing the pronunciation of an inputted text from the phoneme segment storage section and connecting the phoneme segment data pieces to each other; a computing section for computing a score indicating the unnaturalness of the voice data representing the synthetic speech of the text; a paraphrase storage section for storing multiple paraphrases of the multiple first phrases; a replacement section for searching the text and replacing with appropriate paraphrases; and a judgment section for outputting generated voice data on condition that the computed score is smaller than a reference value and for inputting the text after the replacement to the synthesis section to cause the synthesis section to further generate voice data for the text.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.