Unsupervised word discovery from speech using automatic segmentation into syllable-like units

This paper presents a syllable-based approach to unsupervised pattern discovery from speech. By first segmenting speech into syllable-like units, the system is able to limit potential word onsets and offsets to a finite number of candidate locations. These syllable tokens are then described using a set of features and clustered into a finite number of syllable classes. Finally, recurring syllable sequences or individual classes are treated as word candidates. Feasibility of the approach is investigated on spontaneous American English and Tsonga language samples with promising results. We also present a new and simple, oscillator-based algorithm for efficient unsupervised syllabic segmentation.