TR-IT-0054 :1994.4.1

Paul Taylor

Chatr Overview And Synthesizing English Intonation

Abstract:The first part of the report discusses the Chatr speech synthesis system and the design methodology behind it. The remainder of the report gives details of the intonational module in Chatr which is based on the new Event/Tilt model of English Intonation. It is shown how Rise/Fall/Connection (RFC) descriptions of Intonation can be re-phrased and described by a theory of intonational events. Next, the dimensionality of the event description is changed from the low-level RFC space to the higher level, more meaningful "tilt" level. The descriptions are further transformed by describing a set of features and labelling the events in terms of those features. These concepts are discussed thoroughly and performance figures are given at every stage showing the accuracy of each mapping. The report concludes with a description of the synthesis algorithm itself and documentation of the relevant Chatr functions.