METHOD FOR DETERMINING A REPRESENTATIVE SPEECH SOUND BLOCK FROM A VOICE SIGNAL COMPRISING SPEECH UNITS

摘要

After segmenting a voice signal into individual speech units, said units representing a speech sound block are assembled in a group. These multiple speech units included in a group describe distinctively well a sound block. Different selection criteria to evaluate the usability of individual speech units are provided. One advantage of combining the selection criteria is that different criteria can be taken into account when selecting a representative speech unit. Each selection criterion includes a membership function which indicates the "usability" of individual speech units to be selected as a representative of the group. Preferably, the speech unit representing a maximum amongst the speech units of the group according to the selection criteria indicated by the membership function is selected as the representative of the corresponding sound block.