El-WOZ: a client-server wizard-of-oz open-source interface

International audienceWizard of Oz (WOZ) prototyping employs a human wizard to simulate anticipated functions of a future system. In Natural Language Processing this method is usually used to obtain early feedback on dialogue designs, to collect language corpora, or to explore interaction strategies. Yet, existing tools often require complex client-server configurations and setup routines, or suffer from compatibility problems with different platforms. Integrated solutions, which may also be used by designers and researchers without technical background, are missing. In this paper we present a framework for multi-lingual dialog research, which combines speech recognition and synthesis with WOZ. All components are open source and adaptable toIn this paper, we present a speech recording interface developed in the context of a project on automatic speech recognition for elderly native speakers of European Portuguese. In order to collect spontaneous speech in a situation of interaction with a machine, this interface was designed as a Wizard-of-Oz (WOZ) plateform. In this setup, users interact with a fake automated dialog system controled by a human wizard. It was implemented as a client-server application and the subjects interact with a talking head. The human wizard chooses pre-defined questions or sentences in a graphical user interface, which are then synthesized and spoken aloud by the avatar on the client side. A small spontaneous speech corpus was collected in a daily center. Eight speakers between 75 and 90 years old were recorded. They appreciated the interface and felt at ease with the avatar. Manual orthographic transcriptions were created for the total of about 45 minutes of speech. different application scenario

Grapheme-to-phone transcription algorithm for text-to-speech systems in european portuguese

In this paper, a linguistically rule-based grapheme-to-phone (G2P) transcription algorithm is described for European Portuguese (EP). A G2P, together with the stress determination and the syllable division, is an essential tool in the general architecture of a Text-to-Speech (TTS) system. The G2P is part of the text pre-processing module of the TTS system and its purpose is to convert text into a phonetic transcription that is interpreted by the synthesis engine. A complete set of phonological and phonetic transcription rules regarding the European Portuguese standard variety is presented. This algorithm was implemented under the C++ framework and tested by using online newspaper articles. The obtained experimental results gave rise to 98,80% of accuracy rate. Future developments in order to increase this value are foreseen. Our purpose with this work is to develop a module/tool that can improve synthetic speech naturalness in European Portuguese. Other applications of this system can be expected like language teaching/learning. These results, together with our perspectives of future improvements, have proved the dramatic importance of linguistic knowledge on the development of TTS. The present paper is organized as follows: in section 1, it is made the state-of-the-art on this subject and the justification of our approach; in section 2, the annotation conventions are described, the G2P algorithm is presented and some details on the implementation are shown; in section 3, results are discussed and in section 4 some conclusions and future work are presented.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Phonetic events from the labeling the european Portuguese database for speech synthesis, FEUP/IPB-DB

In this paper a labeled new speech signal database (FEUP/IPB-DB) in Standard European Portuguese (hereafter SEP) is presented. The objective of this work is, on one hand, to provide phonetic material for Text-to-Speech (TTS) systems construction, either from the start or to improve the quality of existing ones, and, on the other hand, to place at service of the SEP scientific community a phonetically and prosodically valuable speech corpus, essential for Speech Synthesis or Phonetics research. Our purpose is to make it available for the scientific community, since there isn’t any other DB of its kind for EP. The main features of the database will be described as well as some basic statistical aspects. A discussion of some methodological problems and some observed phenomena in experimental phonetics deriving from the speech signal labeling is also done. The approach in our work is to produce a resource that can be further improved in subsequent steps with minimal re-work. The phonetic, linguistic and technical consistency are guaranteed through the involvement of a multidisciplinary team

Trial of George Buchanan before the Lisbon Inquisition

The process against George Buchanan, as it is set forth in the Inquisition Records, falls naturally into four chapters as follows:- (1) The preliminary proceedings which led to the order for his arrest. These proceedings began on 17 October 1549 and ended on 1 August 1550. (2) The arrest of Buchanan and Diogo de Teive and the sequestration of their effects - events that took place at Coimbra on 10 and 11 August 1550. (3) The trial proper from the delivery of Buchanan to the gaoler of the Lisbon Inquisition on 15 August 1550 to the last examination of Buchanan on 15 Lay 1551. (4) The sentence passed on Buchanan, his abjuration and subsequent penal detention till his final release on 29 February 1552 - the date of the last entry in these Records. I shall detail the course of events under these four heads, referring where necessary to the fortunes of Diogo de Teive and soar da Costa, Buchanan's partners in misfortune

Revisão do módulo de transcrição fonética para implementação no sintetizador de fala da empresa Verbio Technologies SL

Dissertação de mest., Processamento de Linguagem Natural e Indústrias da Língua, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Univ. do Algarve, 2013O objetivo deste trabanlho é contribuir para a melhoria da qualidade do sistema de conversão de texto em fala elaborado para o Português do Brasil e desenvolvido pela empresa Verbio Technologies SL. Tais modificações foram possíveis a partir da revisão minuciosa e das consequentes modificações no módulo de transcrição fonética do sintetizador. Devido às alterações introduzidas pela Nova Ortografia do Português foram feitas modificações nas regras de transformação dos grafemas em fonemas, parte integrante do transcritor fonético que compõe o sistema desenvolvido pela empresa. O novo acordo ortográfico consiste na reestruturação ortográfica da língua portuguesa, deste modo, muitas palavras sofreram modificações e, tais alterações deverão ser abarcadas pelo transcritor grafema-fonema do sistema de síntese de fala. Além das novas regras da ortografia portuguesa, também foi utilizado um dicionário desenvolvido pelo Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações (CPqD), versão 1.4 de maio de 2003. Este dicionário foi usado como ponto de partida para a definição dos fonemas e do subsequente desenvolvimento das novas regras. A metodologia de estudo consistiu na análise detalhada de duas variantes linguísticas do português brasileiro: a variante falada no Rio de Janeiro e a variante falada São Paulo, regiões economicamente desenvolvidas e onde a aplicação de um sintetizador se justica. Além da incorporação das novas regras de ortografia da língua portuguesa, foram definidas também algumas regras que contemplam determinados processos fonológicos frequentes no português brasileiro, como é o caso da epêntese vocálica

Do grafema ao gesto : contributos linguísticos para um sistema de síntese de base articulatória

Doutoramento em LinguísticaMotivados pelo propósito central de contribuir para a construção, a longo prazo, de um sistema completo de conversão de texto para fala, baseado em síntese articulatória, desenvolvemos um modelo linguístico para o português europeu (PE), com base no sistema TADA (TAsk Dynamic Application), que visou a obtenção automática da trajectória dos articuladores a partir do texto de entrada. A concretização deste objectivo ditou o desenvolvimento de um conjunto de tarefas, nomeadamente 1) a implementação e avaliação de dois sistemas de silabificação automática e de transcrição fonética, tendo em vista a transformação do texto de entrada num formato adequado ao TADA; 2) a criação de um dicionário gestual para os sons do PE, de modo a que cada fone obtido à saída do conversor grafema-fone pudesse ter correspondência com um conjunto de gestos articulatórios adaptados para o PE; 3) a análise do fenómeno da nasalidade à luz dos princípios dinâmicos da Fonologia Articulatória (FA), com base num estudo articulatório e perceptivo. Os dois algoritmos de silabificação automática implementados e testados fizeram apelo a conhecimentos de natureza fonológica sobre a estrutura da sílaba, sendo o primeiro baseado em transdutores de estados finitos e o segundo uma implementação fiel das propostas de Mateus & d'Andrade (2000). O desempenho destes algoritmos – sobretudo do segundo – mostrou-se similar ao de outros sistemas com as mesmas potencialidades. Quanto à conversão grafema-fone, seguimos uma metodologia baseada em regras de reescrita combinada com uma técnica de aprendizagem automática. Os resultados da avaliação deste sistema motivaram a exploração posterior de outros métodos automáticos, procurando também avaliar o impacto da integração de informação silábica nos sistemas. A descrição dinâmica dos sons do PE, ancorada nos princípios teóricos e metodológicos da FA, baseou-se essencialmente na análise de dados de ressonância magnética, a partir dos quais foram realizadas todas as medições, com vista à obtenção de parâmetros articulatórios quantitativos. Foi tentada uma primeira validação das várias configurações gestuais propostas, através de um pequeno teste perceptual, que permitiu identificar os principais problemas subjacentes à proposta gestual. Este trabalho propiciou, pela primeira vez para o PE, o desenvolvimento de um primeiro sistema de conversão de texto para fala, de base articulatória. A descrição dinâmica das vogais nasais contou, quer com os dados de ressonância magnética, para caracterização dos gestos orais, quer com os dados obtidos através de articulografia electromagnética (EMA), para estudo da dinâmica do velo e da sua relação com os restantes articuladores. Para além disso, foi efectuado um teste perceptivo, usando o TADA e o SAPWindows, para avaliar a sensibilidade dos ouvintes portugueses às variações na altura do velo e alterações na coordenação intergestual. Este estudo serviu de base a uma interpretação abstracta (em termos gestuais) das vogais nasais do PE e permitiu também esclarecer aspectos cruciais relacionados com a sua produção e percepção.Motivated by the central purpose of contributing for the construction, in the long term, of a complete text-to-speech system based in articulatory synthesis, we develop a linguistic model for European Portuguese (EP), based on TADA system (TAsk Dynamic Application), that aimed at the automatic attainment of the articulators trajectory from the input text. The specification of this purpose determined the development of a set of tasks, namely the 1) implementation and evaluation of two automatic syllabification systems and two grapheme-to-phoneme (G2P) conversion systems, in view of the transformation of the input in an appropriate format to the TADA; 2) the creation of a gestural database for the EP sounds, in so that each phone obtained at the output of the g2p system could have correspondence with a set of articulatory gestures adapted for EP; 3) the dynamic analysis of nasality, on the basis of an articulatory and perceptive study. The two automatic syllabification algorithms implemented and tested make appeal to phonological knowledge on the structure of the syllable, being the first one based in finite state transducers and the second one a faithful implementation of Mateus & d'Andrade (2000) proposals. The performance of these algorithms – especially the second - was similar to the one of other systems with the same potentialities. Regarding grapheme-to-phone conversion, we follow a methodology based on manual rules combined with an automatic learning technique. The evaluation results of this system motivated the exploitation of others automatic approaches, finding also to evaluate the impact of the syllabic information integration in the systems. The gestural description of the European Portuguese sounds, anchored on the theoretical and methodological tenets of the Articulatory Phonology, was based essentially on the analysis of magnetic resonance data (MRI), from which all the measurements were carried out, aiming to obtain the quantitative articulatory parameters. The several gestural configurations proposed have been validated, through a small perceptual test, which allowed identifying the main underlying problems of the gestural proposal. This work provided, for the first time to PE, the development of a first articulatory based text-to-speech system. The dynamic description of nasal vowels relied either on the magnetic resonance data, for characterization of the oral gestures, either on the data obtained through electromagnetic articulography (EMA), for the study of the velum dynamic and of its relation with the remaining articulators. Besides that, a perceptive test was performed, using TADA and SAPWindows, to evaluate the sensibility of the Portuguese listeners to the variations in the height of velum and alterations in the intergestural coordination. This study supported an abstract interpretation (in gestural terms) of the EP nasal vowels and allowed also to clarify crucial aspects related with its production and perception

Autobiographical texts written by learners of Catalan as an Additional Language: From formative needs to reflection in the teaching of narrative genres

In this article we analyse autobiographical narrative texts written by university students studying Catalan as an Additional Language at a CEFR (2020) B1 level. The goal is to analyse the formative needs related to the writing of this genre in order to foster metadiscursive reflection in the classroom that will allow students to improve their written output. To this end, we analyzed a corpus of 39 autobiographies at both the macrotextual level (i.e., rhetorical moves) and the microtextual level (i.e., deictic elements which channel the narrative’s organization). Our results show that the problems that these texts present for students are related to awareness of the elements that define the genre (i.e., the sociocultural dimension) as well as the text’s narrative-temporal anchoring and the narrator’s deictic positioning (i.e., the pragmatic and textual dimensions). Thus, we propose a kind of competence-oriented teaching of genres in which the discursive and grammatical features that have a bearing on a text’s discursive coherence and cohesion are integrated at the same level

La bifurcació dialectal del sistema demostratiu valencià en l'època moderna

Aquesta investigació té com a objectiu principal identificar i localitzar els diversos processos pels quals el valencià forma el seu propi sistema demostratiu, diferent del sistema català general. Al final de l’edat mitjana, el català gesta un sistema ternari a través d’un nou grau intermedi, que emergeix a partir de formes inicialment anafòriques ((aqu)eix, això, aquí) que entren en terreny díctic. No obstant això, durant l’edat moderna ocorren més alteracions. En algunes àrees com la valenciana i la ribagorçana es manté el sistema ternari amb la modificació d’algunes formes (ex. este o ahí). En canvi, en la major part del català el sistemademostratiu es redueix a una organització binària. Progressivament, el català general deixarà de banda algunes formes demostratives (com ara ací, açò i aqueix) i establirà un sistema de dos graus (amb les formes aquí, això i aquest). En aquest estudi ens centrarem en la bifurcació del sistema ternari demostratiu valencià enfront del sistema binari que preval en el català general. Per això, hem reunit un corpus format per textos des del segle XVI fins a la primera meitat del segle XIX. En total, hem obtingut 60183 ocurrències entre demostratius primer i segon grau (ací, aquí, ahí, açò, això, (aqu)est, (aqu)eix...), així com dels adverbis de tercer grau (allí, allà) i algunes partícules relacionades com el clític hi o el pronom ço. Segons els resultats del corpus, hem observat que l’estigmatització de les formes amb aqu- en els textos valencians arriba abans a l’adverbi aquí que als determinants reforçats aquest i aqueix. El test estadístic revela que la decadència de les formes aquí, aquest i aqueix està associada, encara que la magnitud de l’efecte és dèbil. En canvi, en els textos valencians el decreixement de aquí (i hi) enfront de l’assentament de ahí també estan associats, amb una magnitud més alta. Hem examinat també els determinants no reforçats paragògics valencians (este, eixe) i hem detectat diversos casos en què aquesta terminació produeix confusió entre el masculí i femení en altres dialectes (ex. esta plat). En canvi, en textos no valencians, ens ha sorprés l’increment de est a partir del segle XVIII, un fenomen promogut per la influència de la gramàtica escolar que inclús arriba a superar en freqüència el reforçat aquest. A banda de l’anàlisi, aquest treball durà a terme una revisió de la gramàtica tradicional, dels sistemes demostratius romànics i, a grans trets, del funcionament general del demostratius a fi de tindre una visió general d’aquest fenomen.This research aims to identify and locate the several processes which led to the setting up of the Valencian demonstrative system, different from the main Catalan system. In the Late Middle Ages, the Catalan demonstratives built a system with three deictic terms, with a new intermediate ((aqu)eix, això, aquí), which developed a deictic use from its initial anaphoric function. However, over the early modern era, more alterations emerged in the demonstrative system. Some areas, like Valencia and Ribagorça, kept a three-term system with some modified forms, e.g. este or ahí), while the Catalan demonstrative system generally went to a reduced two-term structure. In general, Catalan gradually lost some demonstratives (such as ací, açò, and aqueix). As a result, the first and the second degree were merged (in aquí, això, and aquest). In this study, we are going to focus on the split of the Valencian three-term demonstrative system in contrast to the main two-term system. Therefore, we arranged a corpus formed of texts dated between the 16th century and the first half of the 19th century. Overall, we obtained 60183 occurrences of the first and second-degree demonstratives (ací, aquí, ahí, açò, això, (aqu)est, (aqu)eix...), in addition to the third-degree adverbial demonstratives (allí, allà) and some particles as the clitic hi or the pronoun ço. According to the results of the corpus, we have observed that the stigmatization of the aqu- forms in Valencian texts affects the adverb aquí before the determiners aquest and aqueix. The statistic test reveals that the reduction of the aqu- demonstratives are correlated, even if the effect size is weak. Instead, there is a strong correlation in Valencian texts between the decrease of aquí (and hi) and the establishment of ahí. On the other hand, we examined the Valencian simple determiners with a paragogic -e (este, eixe) and we detected that this ending produced confusion between masculine and feminine in several cases of other dialects (e.g. esta plat). In those texts, by contrast, we noticed a surprising boost of est from the 18th century, promoted by the scholar grammar, which even surpassed the occurrences of the reinforced demonstrative aquest. Therefore, besides the analysis, this work investigates the demonstratives in grammar tradition, their system in the Romance context, and their widespread function in order to offer a general vision of this phenomenon