Patent ID: 7869999
Filing Date: 2011-01-11
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
1. At least one computer readable storage device storing instructions that, when executed on at least one processor, perform a method of selecting a preferred phonetic transcription for use in text-to-speech synthesizing an input text, the method comprising: generating a plurality of phonetic transcriptions for at least one word of the input text to be synthesized, each of the plurality of phonetic transcriptions corresponding to a respective pronunciation that is of the at least one word as a whole, and is different from at least one other pronunciation corresponding to at least one other of the plurality of phonetic transcriptions; computing at least one concatenative cost score for each one of the plurality of phonetic transcriptions to create a plurality of concatenative cost scores, the at least one concatenative cost score for each one of the plurality of phonetic transcriptions indicating at least one cost of concatenating selected speech segments from a plurality of stored speech segments associated with the respective one of the plurality of phonetic transcriptions; and selecting the preferred phonetic transcription from the plurality of phonetic transcriptions for use in text-to-speech synthesizing the at least one word based, at least in part, on the at least one concatenative cost score associated with the preferred phonetic transcription.