Patent ID: 6397179
Filing Date: 2002-05-28
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
A method for continuous speech recognition, comprising:receiving an input signal derived from a spoken utterance of a set of words; providing a search network indicative of a plurality of recognizable words, the search network comprising a plurality of interconnected words, a given interconnection being established at least in part based on a connected word grammar, providing semantic information; detecting in the search network connected word grammars bounded by semantically null words; generating a modified search network by performing a process comprising: collapsing each list of semantically null words into a unique single-input single-output search network portion, and identifying stop nodes in the search network, the modified search network being indicative of a plurality of non-semantically-null words; and processing the input signal at least in part based on the modified search network to derive a list of N-best salient words that potentially match at least one word of the spoken utterance.