Adapting a prosody classification module from German to Danish - A Contrastive Analysis

Abstract

. This paper describes some problems arising when adapting a German prosody classification module to Danish. The module in question has been developed at the University of Erlangen and Munich and is a component of the German train time table inquiry system EVAR [1][2]. The module which is based on Gaussian classifiers has been trained on real life German inquiry dialogs to distinguish three types of user interruptions, mainly in the form of repetitions of a time of day (RTDs) just given by the officer: 1) Questions (rising intonation, e.g. O:" ...leaves at Ulm at 17 23" U:"17 23?"), 2) confirmation (falling intonation), and 3) feedback (continuation rise). In EVAR, each RTD type leads to a different response (eventually no response) from the system depending on whether the user RTD is wrong or correct, complete or incomplete [1] (p. 7). The prosodic module has been examined at Center for PersonKommunikation, Aalborg University, where a flight ticket reservation system, comparable to E..