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4. TEXT TO PHONEME TRANSLATION

4.1 Translation Files

There are two separate methods for translating words into phonemes:

• Pronunciation Rules. These are an attempt to define the pronunciation rules for the language. The source file is:
  <language>_rules  (eg. en_rules)
  

• Lookup Dictionary. A list of individual words and their pronunciations and/or various other properties. The source files are:
  <language>_list  (eg. en_list) and optionally <language>_extra 
  

4.2 Phoneme names

The utility 'phonemes' are:

'	primary stress
,	secondary stress
%	unstressed syllable
=	put the primary stress on the preceding syllable
_:	short pause
_	a shorter pause
||	indicates a word boundary within a phoneme string
|	can be used to separate two adjacent characters, to prevent them from being considered as a multi-character phoneme mnemonic

The phonemes which are used to represent a language's sounds are based loosely on the Kirshenbaum ascii character representation of the International Phonetic Alphabet www.kirshenbaum.net/IPA/ascii-ipa.pdf

4.3 Pronunciation Rules

To find the pronunciation of a word, the rules are searched and any which match the letters at the in the word are given a score depending on how many letters are matched. The pronunciation from the best matching rule is chosen. The pointer into the source word is then advanced past those letters which have been matched and the process is repeated until all the letters of the word have been processed.

4.3.1 Rule Groups

.group <character>


A group for each letter or character.

.group <2 characters>


Optional groups for some common 2 letter combinations. This is only needed, for efficiency, in cases where there are many rules for a particular letter. They would not be needed for a language which has regular spelling rules. The first character can only be an ascii character (less than 0x80).

.group


A group for other characters which don't have their own group.

.L<nn>


Defines a group of letter sequences, any of which can match with Lnn in a pre or post rule (see below). nn is a 2 digit decimal number in the range 01 to 25. eg:

.L01 b bl br pl pr

.replace


See section 4.7 Character Substitution, below.

4.3.2 Rules

[<pre>)] <match> [(<post>] <phoneme string>

.group o
       o        0	// "o" is pronounced as [0]
       oo       u:      // but "oo" is pronounced as [u:]
    b) oo (k    U

In the case of a single-letter group, the first character of <match> much be the group letter. In the case of a 2-letter group, the first two characters of <match> must be the group letters. The second and third rules above may be in either .group o or .group oo

Alphabetic characters in the <pre>, <match>, and <post> parts must be lower case, and matching is case-insensitive. Some upper case letters are used in <pre> and <post> with special meanings.

4.3.3 Special characters in <phoneme string>:

_^_<language code>

Translate using a different language.

If this rule is selected when translating a word, then the translation is aborted and the word is re-translated using the specified different language. <language code> may be upper or lower case. This can be used to recognise certain letter combinations as being foreign words and to use the foreign pronunciation for them. eg:

    th (_     _^_EN

indicates that a word which ends in "th" is translated using the English translation rules and spoken with English phonemes.

4.3.4 Special Characters in both <pre> and <post>:

_	Beginning or end of a word (or a hyphen).
-	Hyphen.
A	Any vowel (the set of vowel characters may be defined for a particular language).
C	Any consonant.
B H F G Y	These may indicate other sets of characters (defined for a particular language).
L<nn>	Any of the sequence of characters defined as a letter group (see 4.3.1 above).
D	Any digit.
K	Not a vowel (i.e. a consonant or word boundary or non-alphabetic character).
X	There is no vowel until the word boundary.
Z	A non-alphabetic character.
%	Doubled (placed before a character in <pre> and after it in <post>.
/	The following character is treated literally.

Examples of rules:

     _)  a         // "a" at the start of a word
         a (CC     // "a" followed by two consonants
         a (C%     // "a" followed by a double consonant (the same letter twice)
         a (/%     // "a" followed by a percent sign
     %C) a         // "a" preceded by a double consonants

4.3.5 Special characters only in <pre>:

@	Any syllable.
&	A syllable which may be stressed (i.e. is not defined as unstressed).
V	Matches only if a previous word has indicated that a verb form is expected.

     @@)  bi      // "bi" preceded by at least two syllables
     @@a) bi      // "bi" preceded by at least 2 syllables and following 'a'

4.3.6 Special characters only in <post>:

@	A vowel follows somewhere in the word.
+	Force an increase in the score in this rule (may be repeated for more effect).
S<number>	This number of matching characters are a standard suffix, remove them and retranslate the word.
P<number>	This number of matching characters are a standard prefix, remove them and retranslate the word.
Lnn	nn is a 2-digit decimal number in the range 01 to 20 Matches with any of the letter sequences which have been defined for letter group nn
N	Only use this rule if the word is not a retranslation after removing a suffix.
T	Only use this rule if the word in found in the *_list file with the $alt attribute.
#	(English specific) change the next "e" into a special character "E"

   @) ly (_$2   lI      // "ly", at end of a word with at least one other
                        //   syllable, is a suffix pronounced [lI].  Remove
                        //   it and retranslate the word.

   _) un (@P2   ¬Vn     // "un" at the start of a word is an unstressed
                        //   prefix pronounced [Vn]
   _) un (i     ju:     // ... except in words starting "uni"
   _) un (inP2  ,Vn     // ... but it is for words starting "unin"

S<number> may be followed by additonal letters (eg. S2ei ). Some of these are probably specific to English, but similar functions could be used for other languages.

q	query the _list file to find stress position or other attributes for the stem, but don't re-translate the word with the suffix removed.
t	determine the stress pattern of the word before adding the suffix
d	the previous letter may have been doubled when the suffix was added.
e	"e" may have been removed.
i	"y" may have been changed to "i."
v	the suffix means the verb form of pronunciation should be used.
f	the suffix means the next word is likely to be a verb.

P<number> may be followed by additonal letters (eg. P3v ).

t	determine the stress pattern of the word before adding the prefix
v	the suffix means the verb form of pronunciation should be used.

4.4 Pronunciation Dictionary List

Also the list can be used to specify the stress pattern, or other properties, of a word.

If the Pronunciation rules are applied to a word and indicate a standard prefix or suffix, then the word is again looked up in Pronunciation Dictionary List after the prefix or suffix has been removed.

Lines in the dictionary list have the form:

<word>     [<phoneme string>]     [<flags>]

     book      bUk

     berlin       $2      // stress on second syllable
     absolutely   $3      // stress on third syllable
     for          $u      // an unstressed word

4.4.1 Multiple Words

    (de jure)    deI||dZ'U@rI2   // note || used as a word break in the phoneme string

    (of a)       @v@

    (such as)    sVtS||a2z   $pause	   // precede with a pause

4.4.2 Special characters in <phoneme string>:

_^_<language code>

Translate using a different language. See explanation in 4.3.3 above.

4.4.3 Flags

$u	The word is unstressed. In the case of a multi-syllable word, a slight stress is applied according to the default stress rules.
$u1	The word is unstressed, with a slight stress on its 1st syllable.
$u2	The word is unstressed, with a slight stress on its 2nd syllable.
$u3	The word is unstressed, with a slight stress on its 3rd syllable.
$u+ $u1+ $u2+ $u3+	As above, but the word has full stress if it's at the end of a clause.
$1	Primary stress on the 1st syllable.
$2	Primary stress on the 2nd syllable.
$3	Primary stress on the 3rd syllable.
$4	Primary stress on the 4th syllable.
$5	Primary stress on the 5th syllable.
$6	Primary stress on the 6th syllable.
$7	Primary stress on the 7th syllable.
$pause	Ensure a short pause before this word (eg. for conjunctions such as "and", some prepositions, etc).
$brk	Ensure a very short pause before this word, shorter than $pause (eg. for some prepositions, etc).
$only	The rule does not apply if a prefix or suffix has already been removed.
$onlys	As $only, except that a standard plural ending is allowed.
$stem	The rule only applies if a suffix has already been removed.
$strend	Word is fully stressed if it's at the end of a clause.
$strend2	As $strend, but the word is also stressed if followed only by unstressed word(s).
$unstressend	Word is unstressed if it's at the end of a clause.
$atend	Use this pronunciation if it's at the end of a clause.
$double	Cause a doubling of the initial consonant of the following word (used for Italian).
$capital	Use this pronunciation if the word has initial capital letter (eg. polish v Polish).
$allcaps	Use this pronunciation if the word is all capitals.
$dot	Ignore a . after this word even when followed by a capital letter (eg. Mr. Dr. ).
$hasdot	Use this pronunciation if the word is followed by a dot. (This attribute also implies $dot).
$abbrev	This has two meanings. 1. If there is no phoneme string: Speak the word as individual letters, even if it contains a vowel (eg. "abc" should be spoken as "a" "b" "c"). 2. If there is a phoneme string: This word is capitalized because it is an abbreviation and capitalization does indicate emphasis (if the "emphasize all-caps" is on).
$accent	Used for the pronunciation of a single alphabetic character. The character name is spoken as the base-letter name plus the accent (diacritic) name. eg. It can be used to specify that "â" is spoken as "a" "circumflex".
$alt   $alt2	These are language specific. Their use should be described in the language's **_list file
$verb	Use this pronunciation if it's a verb.
$noun	Use this pronunciation if it's a noun.
$past	Use this pronunciation if it's past tense.
$verbf	The following word is probably is a verb.
$verbsf	The following word is probably is a if it has an "s" suffix.
$nounf	The following word is probably not a verb.
$pastf	The following word is probably past tense.
$verbextend	Extend the influence of $verbf and $verbsf.

The dictionary list is searched from bottom to top. The first match that satisfies any conditions is used (i.e. the one lowest down the list). So if we have:

    to    t@               // unstressed version
    to    tu:   $atend     // stressed version

4.4.4 Translating a Word to another Word

Use the attribute $text eg.

    cough    coff   $text

    $textmode
    cough     coff
    through   threw
    $phonememode

Currently "textmode" entries are only recognized for complete words, and not for for stems from which a prefix or suffix has been removed (eg. the word "coughs" would not match the example above).

4.5 Conditional Rules

Conditional rules have   ?   and a condition number at the start if the line in the _rules or _list file. This means that the rule only applies of that condition number is specified in a dictrules line in the voice file.

If the rule starts with   ?!   then the rule only applies if the condition number is not specified in the voice file. eg.

   ?3     can't     kant    // only use this if the voice has:  dictrules 3
   ?!3    rather    rA:D3   // only use if the voice doesn't have:  dictrules 3

4.6 Numbers and Character Names

4.6.1 Letter names

   _a   eI

4.6.2 Numbers

_0 to _9	The numbers 0 to 9
_13	etc. Any pronunciations which are needed for specific numbers in the range _10 to _99
_2X  _3X	Twenty, thirty, etc., used to make numbers 10 to 99
_0C	The word for "hundred"
_1C  _2C	Special pronunciation for one hundred, two hundred, etc., if needed.
_1C0	Special pronunciation (if needed) for 100 exactly
_0M1	The word for "thousand"
_0M2	The word for "million"
_0M3	The word for 1000000000
_1M1  _2M1	Special pronunciation for one thousand, two thousand, etc, if needed
_0and	Word for "and" when speaking numbers (eg. "two hundred and twenty").
_dpt	Word spoken for the decimnal point/comma
_dpt2	Word spoken (if any) at the end of all the digits after a decimal point.

4.7 Character Substitution

  .replace
    ô   ő   // (Hungarian) allow the use of o-circumflex instead of o-double-accute
    û   ű

    cx   ĉ   // (Esperanto) allow "cx" as an alternative to c-circumflex

    fi   fi   // replace a single character ligature by two characters