Continued progress in Speech Technology in the face of ever-increasing demands on the performance levels of applications is a challenge to the whole speech and language science community. Robust recognition and understanding of spontaneous speech in varied environments, good comprehensibility and naturalness of expressive speech synthesis are goals that cannot be achieved without a change of paradigm. This book argues for interdisciplinary communication and cooperation in problem-solving in general, and discusses the interaction between speech and language engineering and phonetics in particular. With a number of reports on innovative speech technology research as well as more theoretical discussions, it addresses the practical, scientific and sometimes the philosophical problems that stand in the way of cross-disciplinary collaboration and illuminates some of the many possible ways forward. Audience: Researchers and professionals in speech technology and computational linguists.

Continued progress in Speech Technology in the face of ever-increasing demands on the performance levels of applications is a challenge to the whole speech and language science community. Robust recognition and understanding of spontaneous speech in varied environments, good comprehensibility and naturalness of expressive speech synthesis are goals that cannot be achieved without a change of paradigm. This book argues for interdisciplinary communication and cooperation in problem-solving in general, and discusses the interaction between speech and language engineering and phonetics in particular. With a number of reports on innovative speech technology research as well as more theoretical discussions, it addresses the practical, scientific and sometimes the philosophical problems that stand in the way of cross-disciplinary collaboration and illuminates some of the many possible ways forward. Audience: Researchers and professionals in speech technology and computational linguists.

Contents--Models of Phonetic Recognition: The Role of Analysis by Synthesis in Phonetic Recognition; The Influence of Phonetic Context on the Acoustic Pro9perties of Stops; The Role of Syllable Structure in the Acoustic Realizations of Stops; A Semivowel Recognition System; Two-Dimensional Characterization of the Speech Signal and Its Potential Applications to Speech Processing; An Acoustic-Phonetic Approach to Speech Recognition: Application to the Semivowels (Thesis); Recognition of Words from their Spellings: Integration of Multiple Knowledge Sour.

Although speech is the primary behavioral medium by which humans communicate, its auditory basis is poorly understood, having profound implications on efforts to ameliorate the behavioral consequences of hearing impairment and on the development of robust algorithms for computer speech recognition. In this volume, the authors provide an up-to-date synthesis of recent research in the area of speech processing in the auditory system, bringing together a diverse range of scientists to present the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective. Of particular concern is the ability to understand speech in uncertain, potentially adverse acoustic environments, currently the bane of both hearing aid and speech recognition technology. There is increasing evidence that the perceptual stability characteristic of speech understanding is due, at least in part, to elegant transformations of the acoustic signal performed by auditory mechanisms. As a comprehensive review of speech's auditory basis, this book will interest physiologists, anatomists, psychologists, phoneticians, computer scientists, biomedical and electrical engineers, and clinicians.

Phonology in Context takes a fresh look at phonology in a range of real-world contexts that go beyond traditional concerns and challenge existing assumptions and practices. It brings together research and theory from a range of research areas to suggest new directions for the field.

This book assembles major writings in speech production and phonetics of the pioneering Gunnar Fant, along with his more recent work on speech prosody. The book reviews the stages of the speech chain, covering production, speech data analysis and speech perception. 19 selected articles are grouped in 6 chapters, including a historical outline plus Speech production and synthesis; The voice source; Speech analysis and features; Speech perception; Prosody.

Phonetically reduced forms are plentiful, theoretically interesting, and a key challenge for automatic speech recognition systems. Yet canonical forms are still central to models of production and perception. Drawing from different fields and diverse languages, this volume brings new insights to the debate on abstractions and canonical forms in linguistics: their psychological reality, descriptive adequacy, and technical implementability.

Linguistics: The Study of Language is an insightful exploration into the world of language and its intricate structure. This book offers a comprehensive guide through the various branches of linguistics, providing readers with an in-depth understanding of how language is formed, used, and evolves over time. From the basics of phonetics and phonology to the complexities of syntax and semantics, this book covers every aspect of language study. It delves into the cognitive processes behind language acquisition, the social factors influencing language use, and the neural mechanisms that enable language processing in the brain. Each chapter is meticulously structured to guide the reader through the foundational concepts and advanced topics, making it an essential resource for both beginners and seasoned linguists. The book also touches on the practical applications of linguistics in the real world, including language teaching, translation, computational linguistics, and forensic analysis. By examining the role of language in society and the impact of technology on communication, this book equips readers with the knowledge to understand the ever-evolving nature of human language. Whether you’re a student of linguistics, a language enthusiast, or someone interested in understanding the nuances of human communication, Linguistics: The Study of Language provides a clear and engaging overview of one of humanity’s most fundamental tools.

Worldwide there is a universal need for second language language learning. It is obvious that the computer can be a great help for this, especially when equipped with methods for automatically assessing the learner's pronunciation. While assessment of segmental pronunciation quality (i.,e. whether phones and words are pronounced correctly or not) is already available in commercial software packages, prosody (i.e. rhythm, word accent, etc.) is largely ignored--although it highly impacts intelligibility and listening effort. The present thesis contributes to closing this gap by developing and analyzing methods for automatically assessing the prosody of non-native speakers. We study the detection of word accent errors and the general assessment of the appropriateness of a speaker's rhythm. We propose a flexible, generic approach that is (a) very successful on these tasks, (b) competitive to other state-of-the-art result, and at the same time (c) flexible and easily adapted to new tasks.

This handbook presents detailed accounts of current research in all aspects of language prosody, written by leading experts from different disciplines. The volume's comprehensive coverage and multidisciplinary approach will make it an invaluable resource for all researchers, students, and practitioners interested in prosody.