Abstract:
Aiming at communicative speech synthesis, we
analyzed sentence-final prosody characteristics
through subjective impression on constituting
lexicons. Since Japanese sentence-final particles and
postpositionals are expected to be employed to
generate communicative prosody showing speaker's
intention and attitudes, we designed 52 single-phrase
utterances showing different strength of the speaker's
impressions about judgment. These impressions were
quantified in Semantic Differential (SD) scales. F0
contour characteristics were analyzed by using the
command-response model. To cope with sentence final
F0 characteristics, an additional accent command
was introduced for F0 rise and drop of sentence-final
particles. The analysis showed systematic
communicative prosody control by the accent
command reflecting effect of judgment impressions
which can be obtained from constituting lexicons.
These results indicate possibility of sentence-final
prosody control using impression obtained from
lexicons constituting output sentences.
