METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING ARTICULATORY PARAMETERS FROM SPEECH DATA

A system and method for determining from continuous speech, the instantaneous values of a set of articulatory parameters. The continuous speech data is a sequence of spectral profiles obtained by spectrally sampling continuous speech. The spectral samples are presented in sequence to a plurality of class transforms, each establishing a respective speech phoneme class which includes plurality of speech phoneme having similar spectral and articulatory characteristics. Each class transform converts a speech segment included in its class and contained in a spectral sample into a predetermined set of articulatory parameter values. A class-discriminating transform operates in parallel with the class transforms to produce a set of probability values, each indicating the probability that the spectral sample being transformed represents a phoneme in a respective speech phoneme class. An array of multipliers adjusts the predetermined values of the sets produced by the class transforms by multiplying the values of each set by the probability value produced for that set by the class-discriminating transform. The adjusted articulatory parameter value sets are combined by adding corresponding elements to produce a set of adjusted articulatory parameter values indicative of an articulatory tract configuration appropriate for producing the sampled speech.