Analysis of voice fundamental frequency contours for declarative sentences of Japanese.

Abstract

A model for the generation of fundamental frequency contours (F0contours) of spoken, sentences is presented for the purpose of elucidating the relationship between the sentence F0 contour and the linguistic and non-linguistic information. It is based on a quantitative formulation of the process whereby the logarithmic fundamental frequency is controlled in proportion to the sum of two components corresponding respectively to the effects of phrase and accent. The model's parameters were determined to give the best approximation to an observed F0 contour on the basis of the mean squared error. Analysis of natural utterances of various declarative sentences of Japanese revealedthat the model can generate close approximations to observed F0 contours from a set of discrete commands and a small number of parameters. The extracted parameters were found to be closely related to linguistic factors and factors constituting thenaturalness of speech. These results provide a means for generating natural F0contours from a small set of parameters and rules for synthesis.

Expressive speech: Production, perception and application to speech synthesis

“…The interaction between focus-type information and expressive-type information has been examined by researchers such as Menezes [50], who examined articulatory X-ray microbeam data and found an effect on jaw opening and phrasing as a function of the interaction between contrastive emphasis and irritation. Models of intonation such as the ones by e.g., Fujisaki and Hirose [55], Mozziconacci [56] or t'Hart et al [57] have been proposed to account for the way that intonation is used to convey expressivity in speech. However, a comprehensive model that incorporates not only the intonational aspects, but also the rhythm aspects, as well as the linguistic and sociolinguistc aspects of expressive speech has yet to be developed [58].…”

“…The rhythm and stress are represented by a temporal sequence of syllable triangles, the height of which is derived from jaw opening measurements, and the angles of the triangles are calculated in a simple fashion such that all angles are the same, unless the syllable types (such as syllable weight and the use of certain types of onset/coda characteristics) are different and the corresponding gaps between the base of the triangles indicate the magnitudes of the phonetic phrase boundaries. The F 0 values associated with each syllable of the utterance are connected in a way similar to the Fujisaki model (e.g., [55]) to show the intonation contour of the utterance. The study shows that for expressive speech, the stress pattern represented by syllable and boundary magnitudes often works independently from intonation, e.g., for suspicion, the prominent syllable (/won/) actually has the lowest F 0 value.…”

Tonal Center of Gravity: A global approach to tonal implementation in a level-based intonational phonology

“…In particular, it is important to differentiate what TCoG is meant to accomplish from what other existing models of contour shape both aim at and succeed in doing. A pproaches such as the Fujisaki model (Fujisaki and Hirose 1984), Momel (Hirst and Espesser 1993), and Tilt (Taylor 2000), for example, all encode contour shape in one form or another, but differ from TCoG in important ways. The Fujisaki model and Momel are concerned with representing, with as little deviation as possible, the precise shape of each individual F 0 contour.…”

Control of prosodic focus in corpus-based generation of fundamental frequency contours of Japanese based on the generation process model

“…However, given a speech synthesis system without specific focus control, it is not efficient to prepare a large speech corpus with focus control and train the speech synthesis system from the beginning. While we have developed a corpus-based method of synthesizing F0 contours in the framework of the generation process model (F0 model) [1] and realized speech synthesis in reading and dialogue styles with various emotions [2,3].…”