A synthesis scheme for British English intonation

Abstract

A synthesis scheme is proposed that provides British English utterances with a variety of acceptable artificial F0 contours. It is based on the acoustic analysis of a large corpus of (semi-) spontaneous utterances and on the perceptual evaluation of synthetic F0 contours that have been stylized and standardized. The scheme consists of three parts: (a) an explicit description of the perceptually relevant F0 changes, i.e., the pitch movements, as found in the corpus; (b) combination rules that specify the possible sequences of pitch movements in contours at the clause level; and (c) rules of sequence that govern the concatenation of pitch contours at the level of the sentence. The algorithm has been implemented in the form of a computer program that provides any input utterance with fully specified F0 values, which can be merged with its other source parameters in a (linear predictive code) LPC speech file. Thus the program can be incorporated in a text-to-speech system or be used as a research tool. A representative sample of synthetic F0 contours, generated by the program, has been evaluated in a formal listening experiment with 30 native British subjects. The results indicate that the artificial pitch contours sound as acceptable as their natural counterparts.

Spectral-motion aftereffects and the tritone paradox among Canadian subjects

“…The differential placement ofthe referent relative to the template for subjects with Californian and southern English modes of responding represents another geographical correlate of envelopes than those generated under the higher ones. These hypotheses were based on reported speech characteristics ofa low pitch range for Californian speech (Hanley, Snidecor, & Ringel, 1966) and high pitch excursions for British English speech (Collier, 1991;Willems, Collier, & 't Hart, 1988). Following the procedure employed by Deutsch (1994b), we divided the preadaptation data on the basis of tones generated under the high (C, and F#s) and low (C 4 and F#4) spectral envelopes.…”

A blackboard model of accenting

“…Speech transforms a sequence of annotated words into a speech signal , along the following lines. First, the prosodically enriched sentence is transformed into a structure in which the abstract information concerning accenting is ''interpreted'' in terms of Rises and Falls, in accordance with the  model of intonation (Willems et al, 1988;'t Hart et al, 1990). The resulting structure is then sent to the  speech synthesis system, which takes care of the final phase of acoustic realization.…”

Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching

“…In the IPO tradition of intonation research, for instance, it has been argued that languages vary regarding the basic set of pitch rises and falls and in the way these can form larger melodic contours. In addition, languages can differ regarding overall settings in pitch range and register; it has, for instance, been argued that speakers of British English use a wider melodic span than speakers of Dutch (Willems et al 1988 ) . There are also specifi c constraints on how these language-specifi c pitch movements can be combined to form larger-scale melodic structures (Hart et al 1990 ) .…”