Patent ID: 7627468
Filing Date: 2009-12-01
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for determining, based on speech waveform data, a portion representing a feature of the speech waveform, comprising: an acoustic/prosodic analysis unit which calculates, from said data, a distribution of energy of a prescribed frequency range of said speech waveform along a time axis, and extracts, among various syllables, a first portion of said speech waveform that is generated stably by a source of said speech waveform, based on the distribution of energy and pitch of said speech waveform; a cepstral analysis unit which calculates, from said data, a frequency spectrum distribution of said speech waveform along the time axis, and estimates, based on the frequency spectrum distribution, a second portion of said speech waveform, for which change is well controlled by said source; and a pseudo-syllabic center extracting unit which determines the portion representing the feature of said speech waveform based on the first portion extracted by the acoustic/prosodic analysis unit and the second portion estimated by the cepstral analysis unit, wherein said cepstral analysis unit includes: