Discrete/Continuous Modelling of Speaking Style in HMM-based Speech Synthesis: Design and Evaluation

Nicolas Obin (1) , Pierre Lanchantin (1) , Anne Lacheret (2) , Xavier Rodet (1)

1 STMS - Sciences et Technologies de la Musique et du Son
2 MoDyCo - Modèles, Dynamiques, Corpus

This paper assesses the ability of a HMM-based speech synthesis systems to model the speech characteristics of various speaking styles. A discrete/continuous HMM is presented to model the symbolic and acoustic speech characteristics of a speaking style. The proposed model is used to model the average characteristics of a speaking style that is shared among various speakers, depending on specific situations of speech communication. The evaluation consists of an identification experiment of 4 speaking styles based on delexicalized speech, and compared to a similar experiment on natural speech. The comparison is discussed and reveals that discrete/continuous HMM consistently models the speech characteristics of a speaking style.

Mots clés: speaking style; speech synthesis; speech prosody; average modelling

Domaines: Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Linguistique; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Applications [stat.AP]

Nicolas Obin, Pierre Lanchantin, Anne Lacheret, Xavier Rodet. Discrete/Continuous Modelling of Speaking Style in HMM-based Speech Synthesis: Design and Evaluation. Interspeech, Aug 2011, Florence, Italy. ⟨hal-00597780⟩