Diction based prosody modeling in table-to-speech synthesis

Abstract

Transferring a structure from the visual modality to the aural one presents a difficult challenge. In this work we are experimenting with prosody modeling for the synthesized speech representation of tabulated structures. This is achieved by analyzing naturally spoken descriptions of data tables and a following feedback by blind and sighted users. The derived prosodic phrase accent and pause break placement and values are examined in terms of successfully conveying semantically important visual information through prosody control in Table-to-Speech synthesis. Finally, the quality of the information provision of synthesized tables when utilizing the proposed prosody specification is studied against plain synthesis. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.