[Savannah-hackers] savannah.gnu.org: submission of Articulatory speech synthesis

[david]

A package was submitted to savannah.gnu.org.
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David R. Hill <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: gpl
Other License: 
Package: Articulatory speech synthesis
System name: gnuspeech
This package wants to apply for inclusion in the GNU project

The project is to take an existing text-to-speech package and ancillary tools, 
apps, etc, as written for the NeXTSTEP 3.xx operating system by myself and 
colleagues, convert it to the GNU/Linux system, and make it available under a 
GPL.  The package is based on several innovations, including: an acoustic-tube 
simulation of the vocal tract (instead of a formant resonance model); control 
of the behaviour of this tool using the DRM model due to Carre; creation and 
delivery of the necessary articulatory parameters derived from ordinary text; 
the interactive creation and manipulation of rules to create parameters from 
ordinary text as required to improve speech quality and create databases for 
different languages; and the interactive exploration of tube model control for 
demonstration and parameter creation purposes.  There are a number of ancillary 
components such as a 70,000 word pronouncing dictionary, letter-to-sound rules 
for words not in the dictionary, a service application to provide speech 
services to arbitrary applications on a GNU/Linux machine, a Pronunciation 
Editor to allow users to add words to the dictionary, and various tools and 
documents as required to support development of the system and applications 
with embedded speech synthesis capability (such as aids for the visually 
disabled).

The basic tube model has already been ported to GNU/Linux.  The remainder has 
to *be* ported, using Gnustep facilities and other techniques.  Some papers 
relevant to the work can be viewed at http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~hill/  A 
CD-R with all the initial material except the ported tube model was provided to 
Richard Stallman by courier.