[bookport] An Alternative to a Pronunciation Dictionary
- From: "Jeremiah Z. Rogers" <jzr@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bookport@Freelists. Org" <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:39:01 -0400
Hi fellow book porters. I've watched, with great interest, the different
ideas about the features and functions you'd like to see added to the Book
Port. Many of you have suggested means to alter what you've called
pronunciation, but in your examples, you've almost unanimously cited
instances where the doubletalk speech used the wrong expansion of an
abbreviation: drive instead of doctor, saint instead of street, etc. I've
suggested, in previous posts, that APH allow Book Port users more access to
the finer features of the Doubletalk synthesizers: control of intonation,
pause between words, level of enunciation, tone control, etc. All of these
features are available in other devices which utilize Doubletalk speech, and
as such should be technically available in the hardware presently on-board
your Book Ports. How does this tie into pronunciation of abbreviations? I
believe that there is a means of instructing Doubletalk to simply announce
abbreviations rather than try to parse them. Thus it'd say DR for doctor, ST
for street or saint, etc. This bit of modification should prove much more
efficient in terms of space utilization, as well as in meeting the needs of
most users. Were APH to turn its users loose with complete control over all
of Doubletalk's wide array of configurable features as I've previously
requested, this feature could simply be one of them and could be part of a
speech parameters submenu off the main menu perhaps. I'll be interested to
read reaction from list members to these thoughts, as well as any thoughts
which might be offered by APH staff on the list. Many thanks in advance.
Jeremiah
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