Patent ID: 6631349
Filing Date: 2003-10-07
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
A speech recognition method for collating a target speech with each of a plurality of speech candidates in order to recognize said target speech, said speech recognition method comprising the steps of:(a) collating one of said plurality of speech candidates successively with an ordered plurality of speech frames obtained by dividing said target speech; and (b) performing said step (a) on another plurality of speech candidates; wherein said step (a) includes the steps of: (a1) determining a plurality of likelihoods representing similarities between one of said ordered plurality of speech frames, and consecutive ones of ordered phonemes in a plurality of phoneme strings representing one of said plurality of speech candidates; (a2) determining a plurality of evaluation values representing similarities between said consecutive ones of said ordered phonemes and said target speech, based on said plurality of likelihoods determined in said step (a1) and on a plurality of transition probabilities corresponding to different combinations of said consecutive ones of the ordered phonemes; and (a3) if said evaluation value for the head phoneme in said consecutive ones of said ordered phonemes is smaller than that of the last phoneme in said consecutive ones of said ordered phonemes, replacing phonemes to be collated for the next one of said speech frames with new consecutive ones of said ordered phonemes, wherein said new consecutive ones are said consecutive ones with the head phoneme removed from therefrom and with the next phoneme in the corresponding phoneme string added to said consecutive ones; wherein said new consecutive ones of the ordered phonemes are used when said step (a) is carried out on said next speech frame in said ordered plurality of speech frames.