Position Paper for W3C Workshop on Internationalizing SSML

The Usage of Part-Of-Speech for Resolving Multiple Pronunciations in SSML

2005. 11. 3. Myoung-Wan Koo and Du-Seong Chang KT/KAIT

Introduction
Multiple pronunciation problem Same word but different pronunciations Newton: /nju:tn/ v.s. /nu:tn/ Same spelling but different pronunciations (homograph) refuse: /r'fju:z/ v.s. /'refju:s/
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <lexicon version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon" alphabet="ipa" xml:lang="en-GB"> <lexeme> <grapheme>Newton</grapheme> <phoneme>nju:tn</phoneme> <phoneme>nu:tn</phoneme> </lexeme> <lexeme> <grapheme>refuse</grapheme> <phoneme> r'fju:z </phoneme> <phoneme>'refju:s</phoneme> </lexeme> </lexicon>
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Multiple pronunciation in SSML&PLS

SSML The Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification Version 1.0 Pronunciation information in SSML Phoneme element Lexicon element PLS Pronunciation Lexicon Specification Version 1.0 Pronunciation information in PLS Phoneme element Prefer attribute They doesnt fully support the pronunciation lexicon for multiple pronunciations and agglutinative language. Part-Of-Speech information is needed
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Pronunciation information in PLS (1/2)

Pronunciation Lexicon Specification Version 1.0/Feb 2005/W3C Voice Browser Working Group It allow interoperable specification of pronunciation information for either ASR and TTS engines within voice browsing applications. It is expected to handle multiple pronunciation. Example of PLS
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <lexicon version="1.0" xmlns=http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon alphabet="ipa" xml:lang="en-US"> <lexeme> <grapheme>tomato</grapheme> <phoneme> tmeiou</phoneme> </lexeme> </lexicon>
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Pronunciation information in PLS (2/2)

Prefer attribute of phoneme element Give one pronunciation high priority among pronunciation candidates.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <lexicon version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon" alphabet="ipa" xml:lang="en-GB"> <lexeme> <grapheme>Newton</grapheme> <phoneme prefer="true">nju:tn</phoneme> <phoneme>nu:tn</phoneme> </lexeme> </lexicon>

Effective in speech synthesis Only in multiple pronunciations for same orthography Not in homograph problem refuse: verb/r'fju:z/ v.s. noun/'refju:s/ No information for ASR systems.
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Typical Korean TTS system structure

Structural Information Morphemes, POS Phonemes, POS Phonemes, Prosody

Text

Morphological Grapheme-toAnalyzer Phoneme

Morpheme Dictionary
morpheme POS1 POS2

Prosody Analysis

Waveform production

Speech

Pronunciation Dictionary
morpheme POS Pronunciation
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POS for resolving multiple pronunciations

POS information can reduce the overhead of resolving multiple pronunciations in ASR and TTS systems. The word refuse can have two different pronunciations depending on pos information. Proposal: POS attribute
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <lexicon version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon" alphabet="ipa" xml:lang="en-US"> <lexeme> <grapheme>refuse</grapheme> <phoneme pos=verb> r'fju:z </phoneme> </lexeme> <lexeme> <grapheme>refuse</grapheme> <phoneme pos=noun>'refju:s</phoneme> </lexeme> </lexicon>
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POS information for LVCSR

Large vocabulary continuous speech recognition of agglutinative language Basic unit is morpheme (pseudo-morpheme) for reducing the vocabulary size. Many homographs in the recognition dictionary. POS information help system to get a proper pronunciation in a dictionary as well as to resolve multiple pronunciations in some words. It reduce the search time since POS information could cut the wrong word connection in the first stage, not in the semantic interpretation stage.

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Proposals
Proposal 1: POS attribute of phoneme element Optional attribute Proposal 2: POS element Lexeme element contain optional POS elements.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <lexicon version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon" alphabet="ipa" xml:lang="en-US"> <lexeme> <grapheme>refuse</grapheme> <phoneme> r'fju:z </phoneme> <pos> verb </verb> </lexeme> </lexicon>

POS values: language-specific Type: allow vendor-specific POS type? Outstanding POS set: Penn Treebank, Sejong project (Korean)
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Conclusion
No element or attribute for resolving multiple pronunciations In current SSML, PLS POS information can reduce the overhead of resolving multiple pronunciations in ASR and TTS systems. Can reduce the search time in a large vocabulary recognition system. Can be effective in agglutinative language. Proposals POS element POS attribute

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