Speech Prosody in Speech Synthesis: Modeling and generation of prosody for high quality and flexible speech synthesis (Prosody, Phonology and Phonetics)

The volume addresses issues concerning prosody generation in speech synthesis, including prosody modeling, how we can convey para- and non-linguistic information in speech synthesis, and prosody control in speech synthesis (including prosody conversions).℗ℓ A high level of quality has already been achieved in speech synthesis by using selection-based methods with segments of human speech.℗ℓ Although the method enables synthetic speech with various voice qualities and speaking styles, it requires large speech corpora with targeted quality and style. Accordingly, speech conversion techniques are now of growing interest among researchers.℗ℓ HMM/GMM-based methods are widely used, but entail several major problems when viewed from the prosody perspective; prosodic features cover a wider time span than segmental features and their frame-by-frame processing is not always appropriate. The book offers a good overview of state-of-the-art studies on prosody in speech synthesis.℗ℓ℗ℓ Front Matter....Pages i-viii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 ProZed: A Speech Prosody Editor for Linguists, Using Analysis-by-Synthesis....Pages 3-17 Degrees of Freedom in Prosody Modeling....Pages 19-34 Extraction, Analysis and Synthesis of Fujisaki model Parameters....Pages 35-47 Probabilistic Modeling of Pitch Contours Toward Prosody Synthesis and Conversion....Pages 49-69 Front Matter....Pages 71-71 Communicative Speech Synthesis as Pan-Linguistic Prosody Control....Pages 73-82 Mandarin Stress Analysis and Prediction for Speech Synthesis....Pages 83-95 Expressivity in Interactive Speech Synthesis; Some Paralinguistic and Nonlinguistic Issues of Speech Prosody for Conversational Dialogue Systems....Pages 97-107 Temporally Variable Multi attribute Morphing of Arbitrarily Many Voices for Exploratory Research of Speech Prosody....Pages 109-120 Front Matter....Pages 121-121 Statistical Models for Dealing with Discontinuity of Fundamental Frequency....Pages 123-144 Use of Generation Process Model for Improved Control of Fundamental Frequency Contours in HMM-Based Speech Synthesis....Pages 145-159 Tone Nucleus Model for Emotional Mandarin Speech Synthesis....Pages 161-171 Emphasis, Word Prominence, and Continuous Wavelet Transform in the Control of HMM-Based Synthesis....Pages 173-188 Exploiting Alternatives for Text-To-Speech Synthesis: From Machine to Human....Pages 189-202 Prosody Control and Variation Enhancement Techniques for HMM-Based Expressive Speech Synthesis....Pages 203-213 The volume addresses issues concerning prosody generation in speech synthesis, including prosody modeling, how we can convey para- and non-linguistic information in speech synthesis, and prosody control in speech synthesis (including prosody conversions).℗l A high level of quality has already been achieved in speech synthesis by using selection-based methods with segments of human speech.℗l Although the method enables synthetic speech with various voice qualities and speaking styles, it requires large speech corpora with targeted quality and style. Accordingly, speech conversion techniques are now of growing interest among researchers.℗l HMM/GMM-based methods are widely used, but entail several major problems when viewed from the prosody perspective; prosodic features cover a wider time span than segmental features and their frame-by-frame processing is not always appropriate. The book offers a good overview of state-of-the-art studies on prosody in speech synthesis.℗l℗l