Lucent Technologies Inc.

Chi-Lin Shih

Gregory Peter Kochanski

Joseph Philip Olive

Qi P Li

Katherine Grace August

Michelle McNerney

Qiru Zhou

Jialin Zhong

Arun Chandrasekaran Surendran

Nadine Blackwood

George A Kiraz

Jan Pieter Hendrik Van Santen

A method and apparatus for interactive language instruction is provided that displays text files for processing, provide key features and functions for interactive learning, displays facial animation, and provides a workspace for language building functions. The system includes a stored set of language rules as part of the text-to-speech sub-system, as well as another stored set of rules as applied to the process of learning a language. The method implemented by the system includes digitally converting text to audible speech, providing the audible speech to a user or student (with the aid of an animated image in selected circumstances), prompting the student to replicate the audible speech, comparing the student's replication with the audible speech provided by the system, and providing feedback and reinforcement to the student by, for example, selectively recording or playing back the audible speech and the student's replication.

Method and apparatus for interactive language instruction

Techniques are described for employing a set of tags to model phenomena which are smooth and subject to constraints. Tags may be used to model, for example, muscular movement producing speech. In one advantageous application, a set of tags defining prosodic characteristics is developed, and selected tags are placed in appropriate locations of a body of text. Each tag defines a constraint on the prosodic characteristics of speech produced by processing the text. Processing of the body of speech and the tags produces a set of equations which are solved to produce a curve defining prosodic characteristics over the scope of a phrase, and a further set of equations which are solved to produce a curve defining prosodic characteristics of individual words within a phrase. The data defined by the curves is used with the text to produce speech having the prosodic characteristics defined by the tags. A set of tags may be produced by reading of a training text by a target speaker to produce a training corpus reflecting the prosodic characteristics of the target speaker, and then analyzing the training corpus to generate tags modeling the prosodic characteristics of the training corpus.

Methods and apparatus for text to speech processing using language independent prosody markup

A text to speech system modeling durational characteristics of a target speaker is addressed herein. A body of target speaker training text is selected having maximum possible information about speaker specific characteristics. The body of target speaker training text is read by a target speaker to produce a target speaker training corpus. A previously generated source model reflecting characteristics of a source model is retrieved and the target speaker training corpus is processed to produce modification parameters reflecting differences between durational characteristics of the target speaker and those predicted by the source model. The modification parameters are applied to the source model to produce a target model. Text inputs are processed using the target model to produce speech outputs reflecting durational characteristics of the target speaker.

Methods and apparatus for speaker specific durational adaptation

A method and apparatus for synthesizing speech from text whereby the speech may be generated in a manner so as to effectively convey a particular, selectable style. Repeated patterns of one or more prosodic features&mdash;such as, for example, pitch, amplitude, spectral tilt, and/or duration&mdash;occurring at characteristic locations in the synthesized speech, are advantageously used to convey a particular chosen style. For example, one or more of such feature patterns may be used to define a particular speaking style, and an illustrative text-to-speech system then makes use of such a defined style to adjust the specified parameter or parameters of the synthesized speech in a non-uniform manner (i.e., in accordance with the defined feature pattern or patterns).

Method and apparatus for controlling a speech synthesis system to provide multiple styles of speech

A method and apparatus for performing text-to-speech conversion in a client/server environment partitions an otherwise conventional text-to-speech conversion algorithm into two portions: a first &ldquo;text analysis&rdquo; portion, which generates from an original input text an intermediate representation thereof and a second &ldquo;speech synthesis&rdquo; portion, which synthesizes speech waveforms from the intermediate representation generated by the first portion (i.e., the text analysis portion) The text analysis portion of the algorithm is executed exclusively on a server while the speech synthesis portion is executed exclusively on a client which may be associated therewith. The client may comprise a hand-held device such as, for example, a cell phone, and the intermediate representation of the input text advantageously comprises at least a sequence of phonemes representative of the input text. Certain audio segment information which is to be used by the speech synthesis portion of the text-to-speech process may be advantageously transmitted by the server to the client, and a cache of such audio segments may then be advantageously maintained at the client (e.g., in the cell phone) for use by the speech synthesis process in order to obtain improved quality of the synthesized speech.

Method and apparatus for performing text-to-speech conversion in a client/server environment

Multiple, yet plausible, pronunciations of a proper name are generated based on one or more potential language origins of the name, and based further on the context in which the name is being spoken&mdash;namely, on characteristics of the population of potential speakers. Conventional techniques may be employed to identify likely candidates for the language origin of the name, and the characteristics of the speaker population on which the generation of the pronunciations is further based may comprise, for example, the national origin of the speakers, the purpose of the speech, the geographical location of the speakers, or the general level of sophistication of the speaker population. Specifically, a method and apparatus is provided for generating a plurality of plausible pronunciations for a proper name, the method or apparatus for use in performing speech recognition of speech utterances comprising the proper name by individuals within a given population of speakers, the method or apparatus comprising steps or means respectively for (a) identifying one or more of a plurality of languages as a potential origin of the proper name; and (b) generating a plurality of plausible pronunciations for the given proper name, one or more of the plurality of pronunciations based on the one or more identified languages, and the plurality of plausible pronunciations based further on one or more characteristics associated with the given population of speakers.

Growing community of inventors

Berkeley Heights, NJ, United States of America

Chi-Lin Shih