Patent ID: 8165873
Filing Date: 2012-04-24
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
1. A speech analysis apparatus analyzing prosodic characteristics of speech information and outputting a prosodic discrimination result, comprising: an input unit performing input of speech information; an acoustic analysis unit analyzing frequency characteristics of respective analysis frames set in time series with respect to speech information inputted from the input unit and calculating relative pitch variation as variation information of frequency characteristics of respective analysis frames; and a discrimination unit performing speech discrimination processing based on the relative pitch variation generated by the acoustic analysis unit, and wherein the acoustic analysis unit calculates a current template relative pitch difference which is a relative pitch difference between a frequency characteristic of a current analysis frame and a previously set template frequency characteristic, determining whether a difference absolute value between the current template relative pitch difference and a previous template relative pitch difference which is a relative pitch difference between a frequency characteristic of a previous frame which is temporally previous to the current analysis frame and the template frequency characteristic is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold or not, when the difference absolute value is not equal to or less than the predetermined threshold, calculating an adjacent relative pitch difference which is a relative pitch difference between the frequency characteristic of the current analysis frame and the frequency characteristic of the previous frame, and when the adjacent relative pitch difference is equal to or less than a previously set margin value, executing correction processing of adding or subtracting an octave of the current template relative pitch difference to calculate the relative pitch variation by applying the template relative pitch difference as the relative pitch difference of the current analysis frame; wherein the acoustic analysis unit calculates the relative pitch variation by applying the current template relative pitch difference as the relative pitch difference of the current analysis frame when the difference absolute value between the previous template relative pitch difference and the current template relative pitch difference is equal to or less than the predetermined threshold; wherein the acoustic analysis unit calculates the relative pitch variation by applying the current template relative pitch difference as the relative pitch difference of the current analysis frame when the difference absolute value between the previous template relative pitch difference and the current template relative pitch difference is not equal or less than the predetermined threshold as well as the adjacent relative pitch difference is not equal or less than the previously set margin value; wherein the previously set template frequency characteristic is a data creating a frequency characteristic in simulation, in which amplitude of harmonic components are linearly attenuated with respect to a fundamental pitch derived from stored speech signal; wherein the acoustic analysis unit calculates a cross-correlation matrix defining the relation between two frequency characteristics for calculating the template relative pitch difference, calculating a value corresponding to a shift amount of an edge line connecting peak positions of values of configuration data of the cross-correlation matrix from the principal diagonal of the cross-correlation matrix as the template relative pitch difference; wherein the acoustic analysis unit calculates a cross-correlation matrix defining the relation between two frequency characteristics for calculating the adjacent relative pitch difference, calculating a value corresponding to a shift amount of an edge line connecting peak positions of values of configuration data of the cross-correlation matrix from the principal diagonal of the cross-correlation matrix as the adjacent relative pitch difference; and wherein the acoustic analysis unit generates frequency characteristic information in which the frequency characteristic information is expressed on a logarithmic frequency axis, and when the predetermined threshold is T and the previously set margin value is δ, the predetermined threshold T and the previously set margin value are related according to the following formula