Sarah Hawkins (sh110@cam.ac.uk)
Wed, 7 Jul 1999 15:39:48 +0100 (BST)
Sarah’s response to Richard’s July 7 draft of CSL paper, hereafter “draft
2”:
Overall - a brilliant job! Much tighter and more coherent, conceptually as
well as perceptually. Well done, and thank you. Comments should all be
interpreted as subtext to this general accolade.
Structure:
I have no problem with it. We might need the odd linking
paragraph/sentence, but most of the abrupt jumps in draft 1 seem no longer
to be in draft 2. I would alos be content for sections 3 and 4 to be
reversed, but on the whole, for CSL, present order seems better.
Typos:
I assume your request covers awkward/unclear working as well. Therefore
not included here, but I do have a number - let me know when you want
them.
General:
p5, your caps comment just before Section 3. Yes -- amalgamate the
additional para with some of final comments from the preceding one that I
wrote. Therefore, would you like me to try to do it?
p6, Fig XX. (Mark’s figure). HLsyn *QUASI-*articulatory synthesis.
I’m sure I said this in my responses to MArk’s ESCA paper, but in case I
didn’t, I will set out the reasons again: HLsyn really is more of a
formant synthesizer than an articulatory one, and therefore to call it an
articulatory one is quite misleading. If, for some reason, quasi- is not
wanted, then just call it “HLsyn synthesis”, or even “HLsyn formant
synthesis”. If anyone wants to know more reasons, I am happy to give them,
but please by phone - writing takes too long!
Also, this figure has some inconsistencies re use of capital
letters. Although this comment falls in the “typos” category, if the
figure requires special manipulation to correct, presumably better to do
it only once.
p7. Word seqs: [end of this para: do we want to add a cross-ref to IPs
and AGs where they’re explained?]
p7. bottom: end of para on ambisyllabicity. Add cross-ref to section 4.3?
e.g.:
Ambisyllabicity is discussed further in Section 4.3.
p8. RAO’s caps comment re fig 2. Yes: use YT stuff not Klatt, where
possible. (also in following text.)
p10. last line before Section 4.2. Larger phonological domains? Do we
currently have much data on utts of more than 3 feet? How about “a wider
variety of” ? or similar.
p10 Fig.1 tree. Omit small print re “partial tree structure for ....”? Add
its second sentence (re vertical lines) to the legend.
p11. Fig 1 (again!!) “Find a better one.” Unreadable tree, so can;t
comment.
p11 section 4.3 No opinion re more pix, except, if Figs 1 and 1 (pp10 &11)
are done well, I;d have thought they should be sufficient. Possibly could
be tied in explicitly in the text though.
p12. Headedness, 2 lines up. how SOME ASPECTS OF coarticulation ARE
modelled.
p12. Feet. Para needs tightening up. Several different terms seem to be
used interchageably? If not, I think they need defining. Current order of
sentences gives apparent contradictions.
(a) current draft 2 version:
Feet: All syllables are organised into Feet, which are primarily rhythmic
units. The foot is left-headed, with a [+strong] syllable at its head, and
includes any [-strong] syllables to the right. Types of feet can be
differentiated using attributes of [weight], [strength] and [headedness].
Any phrase-initial, weak syllables are grouped into a weak, headless foot.
A syllable with the values [+head, +strong] is stressed. When an IP begins
with one or more weak, unaccented syllables, we maintain our strictly
layered structure by organising them into "degenerate" ([light]) feet
which are in turn contained within similarly [light] AGs.
(b) my attempt at editing
Feet: All syllables are organised into Feet, which are primarily rhythmic
units. Types of feet can be differentiated using attributes of [weight],
[strength] and [headedness]. A fully-formed (complete??) foot is
left-headed, with a [+strong] syllable at its head, and includes any
[-strong] syllables to the right. Any phrase-initial, weak syllables are
grouped into a weak, headless foot, sometimes referred to as a
“degenerate” foot. Degenerate feet are always [light]. Thus when an IP
begins with one or more weak, unaccented syllables, we maintain the
strictly layered structure by organising them into [light] feet which are
in turn contained within similarly [light] (or degenerate) AGs. Consistent
with the declarative structure, attributes of the Foot are shared with its
constituents, so that a syllable with the values [+head, +strong] is
stressed.
[Note: the sentence about [+head, +strong] syllables may be better near
the beginning of the para, suitably reworded.]
p13 EXAMPLES -- yes please.
p13. last sentence before side heading “PHonologcial features”.
“ProSynth does not make use of extrametricality.”
Either put up in feet section, or expand here???
p13. Phonological features section. cross-ref re ambisyllabicity (tp p7)?
p13 Ambisyllabicity. Does this section need modifying in light of absence
of overlaying in MBROLA? Maybe here is a place for a cross-ref to the
later section in which you say “we can do it in 2 ways, depending on
whether the output synthesizer is to be concat or foramnt”???
p13-14 section 5. This section describes more.... (done in para below,
which is also reworded re timing because I think it needs to be said
somewhere, and the paragraph currently may be a bit one-sided....)
This section describes more details of phonetic interpretation in
ProSynth, focussing on temporal relations, intonation, and spectral
detail. Our assumption is that there are close relationships between each
of these aspects of speech. For example, once timing relations are
accurately modelled, some of the spectral details (such as longer-domain
resonance effects) can also be modelled as a by-product of the temporal
modelling, when the output system is HLsyn (or any formant synthesizer).
This particular trade-off between duration and spectral shape is not of
course available to concatenative synthesis, but the knowledge it reflects
could influence [be applied to?] unit selection. [????]
Section 5.3. I will try to write this tonight. I have to go to a seminar
now, because no one else is likely to go and it's my job to!!!!!
Oh weh oh weh.
love,
Sarah
_____________________________________________________________________
Dr. Sarah Hawkins Email: sh110@cam.ac.uk
Dept. of Linguistics Phone: +44 1223 33 50 52
University of Cambridge Fax: +44 1223 33 50 53
Sidgwick Avenue or +44 1223 33 50 62
Cambridge CB3 9DA
United Kingdom
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