Patent ID: 6975989

Claim:
A text to speech synthesizer, comprising: a text analyzer for analyzing text data; a facial character reading assignment unit for assigning facial character readings to character string portions of text analysis results determined to correspond to facial characters; and a speech synthesizer for outputting synthesized speech based on the analysis results of the text analyzer, wherein the facial character reading assignment unit includes a facial character determining unit for determining whether or not a symbol is a symbol constituting a facial character using an outline symbol table, a characteristic extraction unit for extracting characteristic symbols used in facial characters from facial character strings determined to be for the facial characters, and assigning facial characters corresponding to characteristic symbols, using a character symbol table that associates characteristic symbols with particular reading numbers corresponding to the symbol, and a reading selection unit for outputting readings allotted to extracted reading numbers with reference to a reading table that associates the reading numbers with particular readings corresponding thereto, with the readings being allotted to the facial character strings according to the number of appearances of characteristic symbols in the facial characters.