Patent ID: 6847932

Claim:
A speech synthesis device comprising: speech database storing means for storing a speech database created by way of dividing the sample speech waveform data obtained from recording human speech utterances into speech units, and associating the sample waveform data in each speech unit with their corresponding phonetic information; speech waveform composing means for dividing phonetic information into speech units upon receiving the phonetic information of speech sound to be synthesized, for obtaining sample speech waveform data from the speech database corresponding to the phonetic information in a speech unit, and for generating speech waveform data to be composed by means of concatenating the sample speech waveform data in the speech unit; and analog converting means for converting the speech waveform data received from the speech waveform composing means into analog signals; wherein the speech database storing means divides the sample speech waveform data into speech units of Extended CV, which is a contiguous sequence of phonemes without clear distinction containing a vowel or some vowels; wherein the speech waveform composing means divides the phonetic information into speech units of Extended CV; wherein the Extended CV contains at least one of a consonant C excluding a geminated sound (Japanese SOKUON), a semi vowel, and a syllabic nasal, a semi vowel y, a vowel V excluding a latter part of a long vowel and a second element of a diphthong, a latter part of a long vowel R, the second element of a diphthong J, a geminated sound Q, and a syllabic nasal N, and wherein the phoneme sequence with heavier syllable weight is selected first as the Extended CV, assuming the syllable weight of C and y to be “0”, and a syllable weight of V, R, J, Q and N to be “1”.