In this paper, we propose a method for generating a pronunciation dictionary—extracting typical pronunciations for each word from speech data uttered by Japanese speakers—as one approach to speech recognition targeting English speech uttered by Japanese speakers whose mother tongue is not English. This method includes three processes: a process in which English phoneme HMMs (Hidden Markov Model...

For transliterating foreign words into Chinese, the pronunciation of a source word is spelled out with Kanji characters. Because Kanji comprises ideograms, an individual pronunciation may be represented by more than one character. However, because different Kanji characters convey different meanings and impressions, characters must be selected carefully. In this paper, we propose a transliterat...

In typical speech words are grouped into prosodic constituents. This study investigates how such grouping interacts with segmental sequencing patterns in the production of repetitive word sequences. We experimentally manipulated grouping behavior using a rhythmic repetition task to elicit speech for perceptual and acoustic analysis to test the hypothesis that prosodic structure and patterns of ...

Improving the feedback quality of a computer-based system for pronunciation training requires rather detailed and precise knowledge about the place and the nature of actual mispronunciations in a student’s utterance. To be able to provide this kind of information, components for the automatic localisation and correction of pronunciation errors have been developed. This work was part of a projec...

Improving the feedback quality of a computer-based system for pronunciation training requires rather detailed and precise knowledge about the place and the nature of actual mispronunciations in a student’s utterance. To be able to provide this kind of information, components for the automatic localization and correction of pronunciation errors have been developed. This work was part of a projec...

the present research aims to study the effects of syllabic structure in standard tajiki persian on the pronunciation of standard iranian persian words and the joint loanwords in these languages. this descriptive study used optimality theory, as a recent branch of generative grammar, to analyse the errors. to that end, ten tajiki-speaking persian learners, studying at imam khomeini international...

Lexical stress plays an important role in the prosody of German, and presents a considerable challenge to native speakers of languages such as French who are learning German as a foreign language. These learners stand to benefit greatly from Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) systems which can offer individualized corrective feedback on such errors, and reliable automatic detection...

As speech recognition moves from labs into the real world, the sloppy speech problem emerges as a major challenge. Sloppy speech, or conversational speech, refers to the speaking style people typically use in daily conversations. The recognition error rate for sloppy speech has been found to double that of read speech in many circumstances. Previous work on sloppy speech has focused on modeling...

We present an approach to explicit, statistical, lexical-level out-of-vocabulary (OOV) word modeling for direct integration into the search space of a one-stage speech interpretation system. For this purpose, a generic pronunciation model for unknown words is derived from large pronunciation lexica and, optionally, word frequency knowledge. Known statistical language modeling (LM) methods are u...

Function words, especially frequently occurring ones such as (the, that, and, and of), vary widely in pronunciation. Understanding this variation is essential both for cognitive modeling of lexical production and for computer speech recognition and synthesis. This study investigates which factors affect the forms of function words, especially whether they have a fuller pronunciation (e.g., thi,...