Wolfgang von Kempelen’s speaking machine as an instrument for demonstration and research

Scientific interest in von Kempelen's 'speaking machine' stems mainly from a general interest in the history of science. This study, however, is devoted to the question of what relevance the 'speaking machine' has today. Apart for discussing why it fascinates researchers and non-researchers alike we describe the potential of replicas as an instrument for demonstration and for researching speech generation

Singing synthesis and the Vocal Tract Organ

Vocal synthesis has been the subject of investigation since the late 18th century when von Kempelen produced his mechanical ‘speaking machine’. The advert of electronics has enabled a number of different methods of voice synthesis to be realized in practice. Recently with the advent of 3-D printing and magnetic resonance imaging of human vocal tracts, it has been possible to create synthetic vocal sounds that combine both mechanical (3-D printed tracts) and electronic (synthesized larynx sound source) to enable the effects of various parts of the vocal tract on the acoustic output to be investigated. Given that the 3-D tracts look rather like organ pipes, the author (an organist) has developed a new musical instrument based on this technology, which is called the Vocal Tract Organ. This paper reviews voice synthesis techniques and describes the structure and operation of the Vocal Tract Organ

The organ stop "vox humana" as a model for a vowel synthesiser

In mechanical speech synthesis reed pipes were mainly used for the generation of the voice. The organ stop "vox humana" played a central role for this concept. Historical documents report that the "vox humana" sounded like human vowels. In this study tones of four different "voces humanae" were recorded to investigate the similarity to human vowels. The acoustical and perceptual analysis revealed that some though not all tones show a high similarity to selected vowels

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

Robopoetics: the robot-lyric voice

This thesis develops a ‘robopoetics’ for reading and writing lyric poetry. The thesis is both an exploration of the lyric voice/voicing and a cultural study of the robot as icon. The central premises of this robopoetics are these: robots and poems share lyric substance; lyric voicing renders the voicer indeterminate and lyric poems effectively make robots of poets; we can hear lyric voice in the way we hear robot voices; these voices are uncanny. The thesis first establishes the im/material substance of the robot, its status of both metaphor and ontology as anthropomorphic man-machine and person simulator. Lyric poems share this im/material substance and anthropomorphic function in that they too confirm and construct the human subject. The thesis shows that the ambiguous in/humanness of robots forms the basis of their uncanny vocal effects; it identifies a group of uncanny voice-forms through analysis of robots in popular culture and argues that, because of their material identity and anthropomorphic function, these forms can be heard in lyric poems too. The thesis expounds a view of lyric as ritual voice event and of the lyric subject as a principle of unity whose voicing renders the writing subject indeterminate, so that poems in effect automate the poet. Lyric poetry can be understood as simulation and lyric voicing as ventriloquism, so that the writing subject can neither fully own nor disown the lyric voice. These ideas are demonstrated via analysis of the work of four poets, to which the voice-forms audible in robot voice are applied to explore sounding/silence and absence/presence. The purpose of this robopoetics is not to discredit the lyric subject nor to dehumanise the writing subject; it is to suggest a modern way of approaching the lyric subject, and to seriously consider the humanity of the writing subject such as it manifests in lyric poetry