Evaluating the pronunciation component of text-to-speech systems for English: A performance comparison of different approaches

The automatic derivation of word pronunciations from input text is a central task for any text-to-speech system. For general English text at least, this is often thought to be a solved problem, with manually-derived linguistic rules assumed capable of handling `novel' words missing from the system dictionary. Data-driven methods, based on machine learning of the regularities implicit in a large pronouncing dictionary, have received considerable attention recently but are generally thought to perform less well. However, these tentative beliefs are at best uncertain without powerful methods for comparing text-to-phoneme subsystems. This paper contributes to the development of such methods by comparing the performance of four representative approaches to automatic phonemisation on the same test dictionary. As well as rule-based approaches, three data-driven techniques are evaluated: pronunciation by analogy (PbA), NETspeak and IB1-IG (a modified k-nearest neighbour method). Issues involved in comparative evaluation are detailed and elucidated. The data-driven techniques outperform rules in accuracy of letter-to-phoneme translation by a very significant margin but require aligned text-phoneme training data and are slower. Best translation results are obtained with PbA at approximately 72% words correct on a reasonably large pronouncing dictionary, compared to something like 26% words correct for the rules, indicating that automatic pronunciation of text is not a solved problem

Discussion of the De Generatione Sonorum, a treatise on sound and phonetics by Robert Grosseteste

Here I am proposing a translation and discussion of the De Generatione Sonorum, one of the short scientific treatises written by Robert Grosseteste. The subject is the sound and the phonetics. In this treatise we find a discussion of oscillations and elasticity of materials and the description of some motions and their combinations to

Mutational effects of the preposition ós: Bile ós Chrannaibh and related matters

No abstract available

Backward Causation, Isolation and the Pursuit of Justice

The recent operationalization of the famous Newcomb's game by Schmidt (1998) offers an interesting and thought-provoking look at the plausibility of backward causation in a Newtonian universe. Hereby we investigate two details of the Schmidt's scenario which may, at least in principle, invalidate his conclusion in two different domains: one dealing with the issue of Newtonian predictability in specific instance of human actions, and the other stemming from a possible strategy aimed at obviating the anthropically oriented view of backward causation as applied to a judicial and ethical problem posed by a version of the scenario. We conclude that the scenario is at least to be more complex than originally presented in order to remain viable. However, it points to a very deep and delicate question of compatibility of backward causation with the conventional ethical standards.Comment: Epistemologia, accepted for publicatio

On Generating Combilex Pronunciations via Morphological Analysis

Combilex is a high-quality lexicon that has been developed specifically for speech technology purposes and recently released by CSTR. Combilex benefits from many advanced features. This paper explores one of these: the ability to generate fully-specified transcriptions for morphologically derived words automatically. This functionality was originally implemented to encode the pronunciations of derived words in terms of their constituent morphemes, thus accelerating lexicon development and ensuring a high level of consistency. In this paper, we propose this method of modelling pronunciations can be exploited further by combining it with a morphological parser, thus yielding a method to generate full transcriptions for unknown derived words. Not only could this accelerate adding new derived words to Combilex, but it could also serve as an alternative to conventional letter-to-sound rules. This paper presents preliminary work indicating this is a promising direction

Pūrva Mīmāṃsā: Non-Natural, Moral Realism (Ethics-1, M14)

In this module I set out the Moral Non-Naturalism of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā as a version of Deontology that defines duty in terms of its beneficent properties. It elucidates the scheme of right living according to ordinance or command. Whereas natural accounts of moral terms suffer from circularity (by merely re-naming of a natural property with a moral term, which then serves to justify its moral appraisal), proponents of Mīmāṃsā defend their position by offering the Vedas as constituting independent evidence about what yields goodness. In some ways, the argument provided by the defenders of Mīmāṃsā prefigure Moore's complaint of the Naturalistic Fallacy, but the Mīmāṃsā approach doesn't claim that defining natural properties by ethical terms is a fallacy: it is simply circular