Prosodic structure has long been known to constrain phonological processes [1]. More recently, it has also been recognized as a source of fine-grained phonetic variation of speech sounds. In particular, segments in domain-initial position undergo prosodic strengthening [2, 3], which also implies more resistance to coarticulation in higher prosodic domains [5]. The present study investigates the...

The present study addresses the question of whether the grammatical configuration of prosodic units (i.e., their alignment with the clause unit) may contribute to systematic prosodic patterns. Specifically, we focus on the pitch variation on prosodic boundaries in conversational Mandarin. Results demonstrate that the grammatical configuration of the prosodic phrasing correlates with systematic ...

This paper reports the methodology and results of prosodic word grouping for a Mandarin TTS system developed by the Fujitsu Laboratories. In view of any inner prosodic word break will make speech unintelligible or unnatural, a new prosodic word grouping framework is proposed. The word segmentation result can be regarded as an initial prosodic word sequence with grids inserted into each word bou...

The speech of people with Down syndrome (DS) shows prosodic features which are distinct from those observed in the oral productions typically developing (TD) speakers. Although a different realization does not necessarily imply wrong expression functions, atypical may hinder communication skills. focus this work is to ascertain whether can be case individuals DS. To do so, we analyze acoustic t...

An unsupervised joint prosody labeling and modeling method for Mandarin speech is proposed, a new scheme intended to construct statistical prosodic models and to label prosodic tags consistently for Mandarin speech. Two types of prosodic tags are determined by four prosodic models designed to illustrate the hierarchy of Mandarin prosody: the break of a syllable juncture to demarcate prosodic co...

This paper examines the effects of morpheme boundaries on intergestural timing, and demonstrates that low-level phonetic realization is influenced by morphological structure, i.e. compounding and affixation. It reports two experiments, one using electromagnetic midsagittal articulography (EMA) and one electropalatography (EPG), examining Korean data. The results of the EMA study show that inter...

We describe the design and creation of prosodic speech databases for 6 languages. The purpose of the databases is to allow derivation of prosody models in order to improve TTS synthesis. The main prosodic variables to model were word prominence, prosodic boundary strength and phone duration. We describe the database structure and contents and the methodology for creating prosodic databases, and...

Abstract This article presents an analysis of prosodic smothering in Makonde (Bantu). Prosodic is a phenomenon where certain elements require nearby to be phrased together with them that would otherwise apart. Prior analyses this must lexically specify as triggers smothering. article, building on previous work, derives effects from particular approach the syntax–prosody mapping, according which...

Prosodic boundary prediction is the key to improving the intelligibility and naturalness of synthetic speech for a TTS system. This paper investigated the problem of automatic segmentation of prosodic word and prosodic phrase, which are two fundamental layers in the hierarchical prosodic structure of Mandarin Chinese. Maximum Entropy (ME) Model was used at the front end for both prosodic word a...

Automatic speech processing has recently turned to the treatment of continuous spontaneous speech, which demands, among many other issues, a representation of its prosodic organization. This paper presents a new approach to automatic prosodic boundary detection and prosodic unit structuring, based, with certain changes, on a descriptive theory of the French prosodic system initially proposed fo...