Patent ID: 7460997

Claim:
A computing device that generates a database for use in speech synthesis, the computing device generating the database according to a method comprising: selecting a triphone sequence; calculating a preselection cost for each 5-phoneme sequence where a unit of the 5-phoneme sequence is allowed to match any identically labeled phoneme in a database and at least two units of the 5-phoneme sequence vary over the entire phoneme universe; and storing a group of the selected triphone sequences exhibiting the lowest costs in a triphone preselection cost database by: determining a plurality of N least cost database units for the particular 5-phoneme context; performing the union of the N least cost units for all combinations of the at least two units; storing the union created in the step of performing the union in the triphone preselection cost database; and repeating steps of selecting, calculating and storing a group of the selected triphone sequences for each possible triphone sequence.