Synthesizing intonation for indian languages

In this paper, we examine the importance of intonational knowledge and its acquisition, representation and activation in an unrestricted text-to-speech system for Indian languages, particularly for Hindi. The declarative sentences in Hindi show a declining pattern of fundamental frequency (Fo) contour whereas interrogative sentences show a rising F0 contour. This backdrop declining or rising pattern is characterized by local falls and rises which are determined by the phonological pattern of the constituent words. In complex declarative sentences the declining tendency resets at syntactic boundaries. The values of resetting depends on the strength of the syntactic boundaries. Experiments on inherent F0 of segments are conducted and the contextuali variations of the segments in connected speech are analyzed. The knowledge obtained from the analysis is coded in a production system format. The intelligibility and naturalness of speech output increases after the incorporation of intonational knowledge.