Nuance Communications, Inc.

Darren C Meyer

Stephen Richard Springer

Corinne Bos-Plachez

Martine Marguerite Staessen

Techniques for providing speech output for speech-enabled applications. A synthesis system receives from a speech-enabled application a text input including a text transcription of a desired speech output. The synthesis system selects one or more audio recordings corresponding to one or more portions of the text input. In one aspect, the synthesis system selects from audio recordings provided by a developer of the speech-enabled application. In another aspect, the synthesis system selects an audio recording of a speaker speaking a plurality of words. The synthesis system forms a speech output including the one or more selected audio recordings and provides the speech output for the speech-enabled application.

Method and apparatus for providing speech output for speech-enabled applications

Techniques for generating synthetic speech with contrastive stress. In one aspect, a speech-enabled application generates a text input including a text transcription of a desired speech output, and inputs the text input to a speech synthesis system. The synthesis system generates an audio speech output corresponding to at least a portion of the text input, with at least one portion carrying contrastive stress, and provides the audio speech output for the speech-enabled application. In another aspect, a speech-enabled application inputs a plurality of text strings, each corresponding to a portion of a desired speech output, to a software module for rendering contrastive stress. The software module identifies a plurality of audio recordings that render at least one portion of at least one of the text strings as speech carrying contrastive stress. The speech-enabled application generates an audio speech output corresponding to the desired speech output using the audio recordings.

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Duxbury, MA, United States of America

Darren C Meyer