Research on a speech synthesis system for Japanese texts based on the natural language understanding

本课题的目的是构建一个将日语正字法文本转换为具有标准日语发音的连接语音的系统，主要研究成果如下：（1）提出了一种对天气预报语句进行句法和语义分析并将分析结果转换为适合语音合成的形式的方法。(2)利用基频轮廓生成模型定量分析了公告的基频轮廓特征，重点分析了句子句法结构与基频轮廓短语成分之间的关系。(3)通过对连接语音中重音成分的分析，定量地阐明了重音成分与词的重音类型、句子的句法结构和篇章的语篇结构之间的关系。(4)将（1）至（3）中的结果合并， ...更多信息 构建规则，用于生成文本中未明确表示的韵律符号。这些规则利用标点符号、词的重音类型、句子的句法结构和文本的语篇结构生成符号。(5)基于听力测试结果，提高了存储的音节模板的质量。(6)研究了存储音节模板的阿尔马参数拼接方法。对合成语音进行了主观评价。(7)根据上述结果和前一年的结果，开发了一个日语文本语音合成系统。在该系统中，音段特征是通过连接存储的音节模板合成的，而韵律特征是使用基频轮廓生成模型的规则合成的。日语文本合成语音的听力测试证明了该系统的有效性。虽然本系统最初是针对天气预报的句子，但它也适用于其他领域的句子，上述结果表明，该项目基本上已经完成。少

The aim of this project is to construct a system which converts a Japanese text of orthographic symbols into connected speech with pronunciation of the standard Japanese.The main results obtained are as follows:(1) A method was developed which conducts syntactic and semantic analysis of weatherforecast sentences and transforms the results into a form appropriate for the speech synthesis.(2) Characteristics of fundamental frequency contours of announcements were analyzed quantitatively by using the model for fundamental frequency contour generation with special emphasis on the relationship between the syntactic structure of a sentence and the phrase component of a fundamental frequency contour.(3) Based on the analysis of the accent component in connected speech, relationships were quantitatively clarified between the accent components and the accent type of a word, the syntactic structure of a sentence and the discourse structure of a text.(4) The results in (1) to (3) were combined to … More construct rules for generation of prosodic symbols which are not explicitly represented in the text. These rules generate the symbols using the punctuation marks, the accent type of a word, the syntactic structure of a sentence and the discourse structure of a text.(5) The quality of the stored templates of syllables was improved based on the results of a listening test.(6) Investigations were made on the method for concatenating ARMA parameters of the stored syllable templates. The subjective evaluation was conducted for the synthesized speech.(7) Based on the above-mentioned results and those obtained in the preceding year, a system for speech synthesis of Japanese texts was developed. In this system, the segmental features are synthesized by concatenating stored syllable templates, while the prosodic features are synthesized by rule using the model for fundamental frequency contour generation. The validity of the system was proved by the listening tests of synthesized speech of Japanese texts. While this system was originally aimed at the weatherforecast sentences, it was also valid for sentences of other fields.The above results indicate that the project was almost fully accomplished. Less