From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu Jan 17 09:55:26 2008 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Received: (qmail 15611 invoked from network); 17 Jan 2008 17:55:25 -0000 X-Received: from unknown (66.218.67.95) by m45.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 17 Jan 2008 17:55:25 -0000 X-Received: from unknown (HELO mail5.sea5.speakeasy.net) (69.17.117.7) by mta16.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Jan 2008 17:55:25 -0000 X-Received: (qmail 22846 invoked from network); 17 Jan 2008 17:55:22 -0000 X-Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.66.169]) (envelope-sender ) by mail5.sea5.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with AES256-SHA encrypted SMTP for ; 17 Jan 2008 17:55:21 -0000 X-Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JFYxR-0000U5-Op for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:55:18 -0800 X-Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.66.169]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JFYws-0000Fs-2E; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:54:47 -0800 X-Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:51:28 -0800 (PST) X-Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JFYth-0000Fc-8C for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:51:27 -0800 X-Received: from sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no ([129.241.210.67]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JFYtX-0000F8-Fn for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:51:24 -0800 X-Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no [129.241.210.68]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6EB9C94783 for ; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:51:01 +0100 (CET) X-Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (8.13.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id m0HHp1ot030535 for ; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:51:01 +0100 X-Received: (from arj@localhost) by hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id m0HHp1Zw030534 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:51:01 +0100 Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:51:00 +0100 Message-ID: <20080117175100.GV31951@nvg.org> References: <4f61d245b9jsd@clara.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4f61d245b9jsd@clara.co.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-NVG-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-NVG-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: arj@nvg.ntnu.no Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14109 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arj@nvg.org X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 69.17.117.7 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0:0:0 X-eGroups-From: Arnt Richard Johansen From: Arnt Richard Johansen Reply-To: arj@nvg.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Text-to-speech X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=cEMsAQpVSdRcmwVvQiT_5roGyL-E1wvCCmoQloLx2kHWyL42FQ X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 28592 On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 01:31:07AM +0000, Jonathan Duddington wrote: > I've added a Lojban voice to the development version of eSpeak speech > synthesizer for Linux and Windows: > http://espeak.sourceforge.net/test/latest.html > > The spelling-to-pronunciation rules are simple and regular, so that > shouldn't be a problem, but I need advice on prosody. > > Lojban differs from other languages in its lack of punctuation. I > recognise ".i" as a sentence marker, so I can break up a paragraph into > sentences. But the sentences also need pauses and intonation within > them in order to sound natural. In English, I would recognise commas > and other punctuation as breaks. Also conjunction words such as "and". > > What lojban words should I look for to break a sentence into clauses > (or their equivalent)? > > This is not a problem of meaning or intelligibility. It just sounds > unnatural to speak a long sentence without using pause and intonation > to indicate its structure (and to draw breath). Nice! As you may know, I have been working on a Lojban diphone synthesizer, but that project has not been going anywhere for the past year, due to lack of time and energy to do the grunt work. Here are some suggestions: * ALWAYS have an intonation boundary before .i. It's the sentence separator, after all. Oh, and make sure that you separate cmavo clusters first, since people are apt to write .ije, .iku'i, and an infinite variety of combinations as one. * ni'o should have an intonation boundary in front of it, and possibly a long pause. * The following, and possibly some more, should have minor intonation boundaries in front of them: (na) gi'A nai (where A is any of aeiou); noi, poi, no'u, po'u; goi; to * The following, and possibly some more, should have minor intonation boundaries after: toi > Another question is which words to emphasize. In English eSpeak has a > list of common function words which are unstressed ("is", "the", "my", > "of" etc). For Lojban, I could make all one-syllable words (or even > all cmavo) unstressed, but that's probably inappropriate. I note that > the pronunciation rules say that stressed syllables are optional for > cmavo. Do not stress any single-syllable cmavo. Unless you can insert a pause after it. ("le NO bliprenu" becomes "le nobli prenu", but "le NO. bliprenu" is okay.) Possibly not even then, since it sounds strange. People often stress the first syllable in "go'i". -- Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ - Hvorfor snakker man engelsk p� Internet? - Har du h�rt om minste felles nevner? To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.