14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)

San Francisco, CA, USA
August 1-7, 1999

Fundamental Frequency Contour in Hebrew Synthesis by Rule – An Imitation of a Speech Communication Model

Asher Laufer (1), Yehuda Sonnenblick (2), Aryeh Teitelbaum (2)

(1) The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel
(2) The Jerusalem College of Technology, Jerusalem, Israel

Our Hebrew speech synthesis (although based entirely on rules) attempts to resemble natural speech production. Our speech communication model assumes that speech (both in production and perception) is constructed from sequential segments, which form a continuum. Communication occurs simultaneously on various levels, which can be differentiated by the length of their segments. The basic segment length is that of the phoneme. Higher levels, consisting of longer segments (syllables, stress units, sense-groups, breath-groups, and intonation-groups), conform to associated rules that affect the lower levels.
   The F0 contour is chosen to demonstrate synthesis rules derived from our model. It is shown how F0 can be created step by step, taking into account the different layers of speech production or perception. We demonstrate how F0 is molded as a result of the influence of a few levels and how mutual effects among levels lead to the construction of the composite fundamental frequency contour.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Laufer, Asher / Sonnenblick, Yehuda / Teitelbaum, Aryeh (1999): "Fundamental frequency contour in Hebrew synthesis by rule – an imitation of a speech communication model", In ICPhS-14, 65-68.