U.S.-India Cooperative Research: Development of Rules for Synthesis of Hindi Speech, Award in U.S. and Indian Currency

描述：本项目支持麻省理工学院电子研究实验室的美国科学家Kenneth Stevens博士和印度新德里中央电子工程研究所（CEERI）的S.S. Agrawal博士的合作项目。这两位科学家计划用计算机合成印地语语音，并制定基本印地语音素的合成和连接规则，以生成单词和句子。这些研究的结果随后将用于为印地语研制一种文字-语音合成器。麻省理工学院开发的级联并行格式合成器KLSYN88将被用作分析和合成声音的基本工具。由于印地语有几种不同于欧洲语言的特殊发音，其中最重要的是顿音和非闪音，因此我们将特别注意对这些发音的分析和合成。除了两位资深科学家外，麻省理工学院的一名博士后和一名初级研究员也将参与这项研究，并将在新德里实验室与印度科学家一起工作。项目范围：本项目允许两位能力互补的知名科学家合作开展重要的科学工作。与印地语分析和合成有关的主要实验工作将在CEERI进行，而一些实验也将在麻省理工学院进行。通过通信和私家侦探的互访，将经常交换意见，审查数据、技术和结果这是由美国的年轻科学家们共同完成的。该项目符合国际项目部促进国际合作和增加青年科学家接触国际科学领域的目标。

Description: This project supports a cooperative project by a US scientist, Dr. Kenneth Stevens, from the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA and Dr. S.S. Agrawal of the Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CEERI) in New Delhi, India. The two scientists plan to conduct synthesis of Hindi speech by computer, and to develop rules for synthesis and concatenation of basic Hindi phonemes to generate words and sentences. The results of these studies would be subsequently used to develop a text-to-speech synthesizer for the Hindi language. The KLSYN88, a cascade-parallel format synthesizer developed at MIT will be used as the basic tool to analyze and synthesize the sounds. Since Hindi speech posses several types of special sounds that differ from the sounds in European languages, the most important of these are the stops and affricates, special attention will be paid to the analysis and synthesis of these sounds. In addition to the two senior scientists, a post doctorate and a junior researcher from MIT will also participate in the research and will work with the Indian scientists in the New Delhi Laboratory. Scope: This project allows cooperation of two well known scientists whose capabilities complement each other to do important scientific work. The major experimental work related to analysis and synthesis of Hindi speech will be carried at CEERI, while some experiments will also be conducted at MIT. There will be frequent exchange of ideas, review of data, techniques and results through correspondence and through exchanges of visits by the P.I.'s and by the U.S. junior scientists. This project meets the objectives of the Division of International Programs in fostering international collaboration and increasing the exposure of young scientists to the international scientific scene.