Patent Document ID: 7475016
Application ID: 11012622

Base Claim:
1. A method of identifying potentially misaligned speech segments from an ordered sequence of speech segments in order to create an accurate speech database for speech synthesis, the method comprising: identifying a first cluster comprising at least one speech segment selected from the ordered sequence of speech segments if the at least one speech segment satisfies a predetermined filtering test for a misaligned segment; identifying a second cluster comprising at least one different speech segment selected from the ordered sequence of speech segments if the at least one different speech segment satisfies the predetermined filtering test and if there is at least one intervening speech segment occupying a sequential position between the at least one speech segment and the at least one different speech segment, the intervening speech segment failing to satisfy the predetermined filtering test; and combining the first and second clusters and the at least one intervening speech segment to generate an aggregated cluster if the aggregated cluster satisfies a predetermined combining criterion, the aggregated cluster replacing the first and second clusters.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the predetermined combining criterion reflects a likelihood that the at least one intervening speech segment is a misaligned speech segment.