GRAPHEME TO PHONEME MODULE FOR SYNTHESIZING SPEECH ALTERNATELY USING PAIRS OF FOUR RELATED DATA BASES

Synthetic speech is generated from conventional texts and in particular by converting text in graphemes into a text in phonemes. The grapheme text is analyzed into rimes and onsets, and each word is analyzed from the end so that earlier-occurring segments are at least partially defined by the identification of later-occurring segments. It is a particular feature that an internal string of consonants, i.e., a string of consonants preceded and followed by a vowel, is split into two portions, namely, a second portion which is contained in a database of onsets, and an earlier portion which, together with the preceding vowel or vowels, is contained in a database of rimes.