This books presents the most comprehensive description and analysis to date of Hebrew morphology, with an emphasis on the verbal templates. Its aim is to develop a theory of argument structure alternations which is anchored in the syntax but has systematic interfaces with the phonology and the semantics. Concretely, the monograph argues for a specific formal system centered around possible values of the head Voice. The formal assumptions are as similar as possible to those made in work on non-Semitic languages. The first part of the book (four chapters) is devoted to Hebrew; the second part (two chapters) compares the current theory with other approaches to Voice and argument structure in the recent literature.

Voice user interfaces (VUIs) are becoming all the rage today. But how do you build one that people can actually converse with? Whether you’re designing a mobile app, a toy, or a device such as a home assistant, this practical book guides you through basic VUI design principles, helps you choose the right speech recognition engine, and shows you how to measure your VUI’s performance and improve upon it. Author Cathy Pearl also takes product managers, UX designers, and VUI designers into advanced design topics that will help make your VUI not just functional, but great.Understand key VUI design concepts, including command-and-control and conversational systemsDecide if you should use an avatar or other visual representation with your VUIExplore speech recognition technology and its impact on your designTake your VUI above and beyond the basic exchange of informationLearn practical ways to test your VUI application with usersMonitor your app and learn how to quickly improve performanceGet real-world examples of VUIs for home assistants, smartwatches, and car systems

Get a step-by-step guide for developing voice interfaces for applications and devices connected to the Internet of Things. By allowing consumers to use natural human interactions, you can avoid awkward methods of input and interactivity to provide them with elevated user experiences. This practical book is ideal for software engineers who build applications for the Web, smartphones, as well as embedded systems that dominate the IoT space. Integrate voice interfaces with internet connected devices and sensors Learn how to integrate with existing voice interfaces Understand when to use a voice over other Natural User Interface technologies Build a prototype with tools such as Raspberry Pi, solderless breadboards, jumper cables, sensors, Arduino, Visual Studio, and other tools Use cloud services such as Azure and AWS to integrate voice with your existing or new web service end-points

This book is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to voice user interface (VUI) design. The VUI is perhaps the most critical factor in the success of any automated speech recognition (ASR) system, determining whether the user experience will be satisfying or frustrating, or even whether the customer will remain one. This book describes a practical methodology for creating an effective VUI design. The methodology is scientifically based on principles in linguistics, psychology, and language technology, and is illustrated here by examples drawn from the authors' work at Nuance Communications, the market leader in ASR development and deployment. The book begins with an overview of VUI design issues and a description of the technology. The authors then introduce the major phases of their methodology. They first show how to specify requirements and make high-level design decisions during the definition phase. They next cover, in great detail, the design phase, with clear explanations and demonstrations of each design principle and its real-world applications. Finally, they examine problems unique to VUI design in system development, testing, and tuning. Key principles are illustrated with a running sample application. A companion Web site provides audio clips for each example: www.VUIDesign.org The cover photograph depicts the first ASR system, Radio Rex: a toy dog who sits in his house until the sound of his name calls him out. Produced in 1911, Rex was among the few commercial successes in earlier days of speech recognition. Voice User Interface Design reveals the design principles and practices that produce commercial success in an era when effective ASRs are not toys but competitive necessities.

We live in a golden age of voice technology. Advances in automatic speech recognition (ASR), natural language processing (NLP) and other technologies have made it extremely viable for people to be talking to machines and getting reasonable answers. Platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, and the associated tools, have made it so anyone can build a voice app, and this is excellent. What we have seen though is that it's fairly easy to build a voice app, but still remarkably difficult to build a great app, one that gets the user what they need, and hopefully the user comes back for more. In Mastering Voice Interfaces we want to show you how to build great voice apps. We start with the basics of voice interfaces, and how they are different from others, then dive into basic design principles that we're learned in many years building these apps in the industry. As we cover a design principle, we'll also demonstrate how to implement it with one of the established voice platforms (Google Home), and show how, though the tools are great, you don't have to go too far to have to do some custom work to get what you really want. Well l walk through many design and development techniques that some would view as advanced, but that can make a huge difference in the quality of the app. Readers of Mastering Voice Interfaces will come away with a very good understanding of what makes voice interfaces so special, learn the basic design principles are for building great voice apps, and how to actually implement those principles and create working apps. What you will learn: What makes voice special and different from other input and output modalities, and why that matters. What the best practices for the various components of the voice-first creation process What are the consequences of design and implementation choices How to create truly great voice apps that users will love Who this book is for We expect readers to have had some exposure to voice apps, at least as users. The book is written for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the how and why of voice interface design and development. For team of developers, designers, product owners who need a shared understanding of voice interfaces.

Master the critical knowledge you need to design speech-enabled applications It's not just a far-fetched gizmo straight out of a sci-fi movie anymore. Speech interface technology, which allows a user to communicate with computers via voice instead of a keyboard or a mouse, is quickly becoming a main feature in new software. This straightforward guide provides traditional graphical user-interface designers, developers, usability engineers, and product managers with all the information they need to make a rapid transition in order to stay abreast of this monumental shift in technology. Weinschenk and Barker, two experts in state-of-the-art online communication, discuss the basics of speech interfaces and speech technology, hardware, and software. They clearly explain the interface design principles that are applied to S/GUI and AUI interfaces and describe the latest practices of leading experts. In addition to its in-depth look at speech technologies and the different types of user interfaces, this book: * Provides an overview of the field of human factors and defines the basic concepts of human computer interaction * Discusses the current state of speech technology applications * Explains the laws of human factors that apply to speech interfaces * Contains guidelines and examples for user control, human limitation, model integrity, accommodation, clear dialogue, and aesthetic integrity * Details the best practices in interface design and usability engineering * Explores the special issues involved in interface design for disabled persons Visit the companion web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/weinschenk/ for a categorized resource list of speech, speech interface, and human-computer interaction books, articles, and links.

Although speech is the most natural form of communication between humans, most people find using speech to communicate with machines anything but natural. Drawing from psychology, human-computer interaction, linguistics, and communication theory, Practical Speech User Interface Design provides a comprehensive yet concise survey of practical speech

How interactive voice-based technology can tap into the automatic and powerful responses all speech—whether from human or machine—evokes. Interfaces that talk and listen are populating computers, cars, call centers, and even home appliances and toys, but voice interfaces invariably frustrate rather than help. In Wired for Speech, Clifford Nass and Scott Brave reveal how interactive voice technologies can readily and effectively tap into the automatic responses all speech—whether from human or machine—evokes. Wired for Speech demonstrates that people are "voice-activated": we respond to voice technologies as we respond to actual people and behave as we would in any social situation. By leveraging this powerful finding, voice interfaces can truly emerge as the next frontier for efficient, user-friendly technology. Wired for Speech presents new theories and experiments and applies them to critical issues concerning how people interact with technology-based voices. It considers how people respond to a female voice in e-commerce (does stereotyping matter?), how a car's voice can promote safer driving (are "happy" cars better cars?), whether synthetic voices have personality and emotion (is sounding like a person always good?), whether an automated call center should apologize when it cannot understand a spoken request ("To Err is Interface; To Blame, Complex"), and much more. Nass and Brave's deep understanding of both social science and design, drawn from ten years of research at Nass's Stanford laboratory, produces results that often challenge conventional wisdom and common design practices. These insights will help designers and marketers build better interfaces, scientists construct better theories, and everyone gain better understandings of the future of the machines that speak with us.

This book provides a comprehensive typological account of voice syncretism, focusing on resemblance in formal verbal marking between two or more of the following seven voices: passives, antipassives, reflexives, reciprocals, anticausatives, causatives, and applicatives. It covers voice syncretism from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and has been structured in a manner that facilitates convenient access to information about specific patterns of voice syncretism, their distribution and development. The book is based on a survey of voice syncretism in 222 geographically and genealogically diverse languages, but also thoroughly revisits previous research on the phenomenon. Voice syncretism is approached systematically by establishing and exploring patterns of voice syncretism that can logically be posited for the seven voices of focus in the book: 21 simplex patterns when one considers two of the seven voices sharing the same marking (e.g. reflexive-reciprocal syncretism), and 99 complex patterns when one considers more than two of the voices sharing the same marking (e.g. reflexive-reciprocal-anticausative syncretism). In a similar vein, 42 paths of development can logically be posited if it is assumed that voice marking in each of the seven voices can potentially develop one of the other six voice functions (e.g. reflexive voice marking developing a reciprocal function). This approach enables the discussion of both voice syncretism that has received considerable attention in the literature (notably middle syncretism involving the reflexive, reciprocal, anticausative and/or passive voices) and voice syncretism that has received little or not treatment in the past (including seemingly contradictory patterns such as causative-anticausative and passive-antipassive syncretism). In the survey almost all simplex patterns are attested in addition to seventeen complex patterns. In terms of diachrony, evidence is presented and discussed for twenty paths of development. The book strives to highlight the variation found in voice syncretism across the world’s languages and encourage further research into the phenomenon.

"Empirically rich, analytically sophisticated, and theoretically necessary. A major step forward in minimalist theorizing." --