Patent ID: 6029131
Filing Date: 2000-02-22
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
A synthetic speech system comprising:means for detecting natural timing boundaries in words to be spoken by said synthetic speech system, to produce natural timing intervals;means for identifying phonemes in said natural timing intervals;means for assigning first time durations for each of said phonemes;means for changing a selected first time duration of a selected phoneme to achieve a desired time duration for a selected natural timing interval containing said selected phoneme; andmeans for setting a plurality of said natural timing intervals to substantially the same second time duration, a particular phoneme having a computed time duration in response to number of phonemes within said selected natural timing interval and said second time duration;wherein at least said selected first time duration is based upon an elasticity parameter indicative of degree to which said selected first time duration may be adjusted without undesirably degrading speech produced by said system.