Patent Document ID: 8131547
Application ID: 12544576

Base Claim:
1. A method for automatic segmentation of speech to generate a speech inventory, the method comprising: initializing, via a processor, a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) using seed input data; performing a segmentation of the HMM into speech units to generate phone labels; correcting, via the processor, the segmentation of the speech units by performing the steps: re-estimating the HMM based on a current version of the phone labels; embedded re-estimating of the HMM; and updating the current version of the phone labels using spectral boundary correction.

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Claim 6:
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying context-dependent time windows around speech unit boundaries, wherein the speech unit boundaries include one or more of: a vowel-to-vowel boundary; a vowel-to-nasal boundary; a vowel-to-voiced stop boundary; a vowel-to-liquid boundary; a vowel-to-unvoiced stop boundary; a vowel-to-voiced fricative boundary; an unvoiced stop-to-vowel boundary; a nasal-to-vowel boundary; a voiced stop-to-vowel boundary a liquid-to-vowel boundary; an unvoiced fricative-to-vowel boundary; and a voiced fricative-to-vowel boundary.