JPH07160685A - Device for reading out sentence - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent redundant and excess parts from being read out without generating all words comprising the sentence and to perform reading in the required form. CONSTITUTION:It analyzes the sentence held in a part 1 holding the input sentence with the use of the information stored in a word dictionary 3 and the information stored in a grammar rule 4. It holds it in a part 5 holding the sentence analysis result and analyzes the expression using the parentheses stored in the sentence analysis result held in the part 5 with the use of the information held in a parentheses expression knowledge base 6. Based on the sentence analysis result, the reading information is generated and it is outputted to a speaker 11.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a text-to-speech device for automatically reading written text.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a text-to-speech device analyzes a text and adds reading information obtained from the analysis result.
He spoke all the words that compose the sentence faithfully.

[0003]

However, in the conventional device of this kind, since all the words constituting the sentence are read out as they are, in the case of a sentence such as "I ate a mandarin orange", , "Watashi Mikan Mikan Otabeta", there was a drawback that the listener could read out even redundant readings such as phonetic readings, which would hinder the listener from understanding the sentence.

It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks and not to utter all the words that compose a sentence, but to prevent the listener from reading redundant or unnecessary parts, and to read them in a necessary and sufficient manner. It is to provide a text-to-speech device that can be done.

[0005]

To achieve the above object, the present invention comprises a document storage means for storing a sentence, a word dictionary storage means for storing information about a word, and a grammar rule storage means for storing information about a grammar. A sentence analysis means for analyzing a sentence held in the sentence storage means using the information stored in the word dictionary storage means and the information stored in the grammar rule storage means; It exists in the sentence analysis result holding means for holding the obtained result, the parenthesis expression knowledge base for holding information about the expression using parentheses, and the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding means. , Parenthesized expression analysis means for analyzing an expression using parentheses using the information held in the parenthesized expression knowledge base, and the sentence analysis result holding means. Chapter is characterized in that and means for generating and outputting information read based on the analysis result.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is an input sentence holding unit that holds a sentence to be read out, and 2 is a sentence analysis processing unit that analyzes the sentence held in the input sentence holding unit 1. Three
Is a word dictionary used by the sentence analysis processing unit 2, and 4 is a grammar rule used by the sentence analysis processing unit 2, and these are stored in an appropriate storage means. Reference numeral 5 is a sentence analysis result holding unit that holds the result of the sentence analysis processing unit 2. Reference numeral 6 is a parenthesized expression knowledge base that holds various knowledge about expressions using parentheses, and is appropriately stored in the storage means. 7 is present in the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding unit. A parenthesis expression analysis unit that analyzes an expression using parentheses based on the base 6, 8 is a reading information generation unit that generates reading information based on the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding unit, 9 units A reading information holding unit that holds the reading generated by the reading information generating unit, 10 is a voice synthesizing unit that synthesizes voice from the reading information held in the reading information holding unit, and 11 is a voice that is synthesized by the voice synthesizing unit. It is a speaker that outputs information. For example, the above-mentioned 1,5,9 can be constituted by RAM, 3,4,6 can be constituted by ROM, and 2,7,8,9 can be constituted by CPU. Stored in).

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the processing procedure of the operation in the apparatus shown in FIG. With reference to this figure, the input sentence “My favorite (one of)” shown in FIG.
Is a mandarin orange. The operation procedure of the present invention will be shown by way of example. In FIG. 2, in step S1, analysis processing of the sentence held in the input sentence holding unit 1 is performed. This is performed by the sentence analysis processing unit 2 using the word dictionary 3 and the grammar rule 4. This result is held in the sentence analysis result holding unit 5, and step S2
Move on to. Next, in step S2, the parenthesis expression is searched for from the sentence analysis result holding unit 5, and if it exists, the parenthesis expression analysis of step S3 is performed. If it does not exist, step S4
Move on to. In step S3, the parenthesis expression analysis unit 7 analyzes the classification of parenthesis expressions by referring to the parenthesis expression knowledge base 6 regarding parenthesis expressions existing in the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding unit 5. For example, parenthesized expressions usually have usages such as item numbers, readings, abbreviations, supplementary explanations, examples, and abbreviations. Bracketed expression = "Parented expression in parentheses" Is the item number (Knowledge No. 1 in Fig. 3) Parenthesis expression = "Hiragana in parentheses and the reading of the immediately preceding Kanji string" It is something like that. Here, based on the action information stored in the parenthesized expression knowledge base 6 indicating the reading determination, it is also determined whether or not each parenthesized expression portion is read out. The action obtained here is held in the sentence analysis result holding unit 5. In step S4, the reading information generation unit 8 generates reading information based on the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding unit 5, and holds the reading information in the reading information holding unit 9. In step S5, the voice synthesis unit 10 synthesizes a voice based on the read information stored in the read information storage unit 9, outputs the voice through the speaker 11, and ends the process.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the contents of the parenthesized expression knowledge base 6. FIG. 4 illustrates a concrete example of the state of the present embodiment by taking the sentence “My favorite (one of them) is mandarin orange” that includes parentheses in the process of processing of this device. is there. Here, when the input sentence "My favorite food (one of them) is mandarin orange" is analyzed, the two parenthesized expressions (one of) and (mandarin orange) An example showing parentheses in the parenthesis expression part obtained as a result of performing parentheses expression analysis based on the parenthesized expression knowledge base 6 and actions for judging whether or not to read it out. Is (b). Finally, (c) is an example of actually pronounced katakana generated based on the reading information generation result.

[Other Embodiments] In the above embodiments, Japanese has been described as an example, but the present invention is not limited to this.
It can be applied to any language, such as English or German, that sometimes uses parentheses.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, the description of reading individual parenthesized expressions is stored in advance in the parenthesized expression knowledge base as action information, but the user can update the action information of individual parenthesized expressions read out. You may

In the above embodiment, the symbol () is taken up in parentheses, but the present invention is not limited to this, and any symbols such as [], [] and {} that can be used in parentheses are also applicable. it can.

In the above-described embodiment, the case where the redundant or unnecessary part is not read out after the sentence analysis and the parenthesis expression analysis are performed has been described. However, the sentence in which the parenthesis expression part is removed before the sentence analysis is performed. The sentence analysis may be performed and the resulting reading may be uttered.

In the above embodiment, the case where the redundant or unnecessary portion is not read out has been described.
It may be formed by voicing with a different voicing method other than the parenthesized expression, such as lowering the volume of only redundant or unnecessary parts and voicing only redundant or unnecessary parts. .

[0014]

As described above, according to the present invention,
By analyzing the part of the parenthesis expression and not reading out redundant or unnecessary parts, it becomes easier for the user to hear the content of the sentence. Or
The effect is that the meaning of the sentence is easy to understand.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of contents of a parenthesized expression knowledge base for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of specific processing for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 input sentence storage unit 2 sentence analysis processing unit 3 word dictionary 4 grammar rules 5 sentence analysis result storage unit 6 parenthesized expression knowledge base 7 parenthesized expression analysis unit 8 reading information generation unit 9 reading information storage unit 10 speech synthesis unit 11 speaker

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A document storage unit for storing a sentence, a word dictionary storage unit for storing information about a word, a grammar rule storage unit for storing information about a grammar, and a sentence held in the sentence storage unit, Sentence analysis means for analyzing using the information stored in the word dictionary storage means and the information stored in the grammar rule storage means, and a sentence analysis result holding means for holding the result obtained by the sentence analysis means , A parenthesized expression knowledge base that holds information about expressions using parentheses, and an expression that uses parentheses that is present in the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding means as the parenthesized expression knowledge base. Parenthesis expression analysis means for analyzing using the held information and reading information is generated and output based on the sentence analysis result held in the sentence analysis result holding means. A text-to-speech device characterized by comprising means. 2. The parenthesized expression knowledge base stores pattern of parenthesized expressions, their classification, and action information for setting a judgment as to whether or not to read each part of parenthesized expression, and the parenthesized expression is stored. 2. The text-to-speech device according to claim 1, wherein the analysis means analyzes the parenthesized expressions present in the text so as not to read out redundant or unnecessary parts such as phonetic characters.