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Constructing High-Accuracy Letter-to-Phoneme Rules with Machine Learning

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Data-Driven Techniques in Speech Synthesis

Abstract

This chapter describes a machine learning approach to the problem of letter-to-sound conversion that builds upon and extends the pioneering Nettalk work of Sejnowski and Rosenberg. Among the many extensions to the NETtalk system were the following: a different learning algorithm, a wider input window, errorcorrecting output coding, a right-to-left scan of the word to be pronounced (with the results of each decision influencing subsequent decisions), and the addition of several useful input features. These changes yielded a system that performs much better than the original Nettalk. After training on 19,002 words, the system achieves 93.7% correct pronunciation of individual phonemes and 64.8% correct pronunciation of whole words (where the pronunciation must exactly match the dictionary pronunciation to be correct) on an unseen 1000-word test set. Based on the judgements of three human listeners in a blind assessment study, our system was estimated to have a serious error rate of 16.7% (on whole words) compared to 26.1% for the DECtalk 3.0 rule base.

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© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Bakiri, G., Dietterich, T.G. (2001). Constructing High-Accuracy Letter-to-Phoneme Rules with Machine Learning. In: Damper, R.I. (eds) Data-Driven Techniques in Speech Synthesis. Telecommunications Technology & Applications Series. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3413-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3413-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-4733-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3413-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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