Philip J.B. Jackson

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Mama and Papa the ancestors of modern-day speech
science

• Philip J.B. Jackson
• research fellow

Electronic Electrical and Computer Engineering
http//web.bham.ac.uk/p.jackson
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Outline
INTRODUCTION

1. The sounds of English
2. Darwins studies of phonetics
3. Human speech production
4. Darwins speaking machine
5. C.20th speech synthesis
6. Summary

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Analysis of Articulate Sounds
PHONETICS
The tongue, the lips articulate the throat
With soft vibration modulates the note.

1. Imperfections of the present Alphabet
2. Production of Sounds
3. Structure of the Alphabet

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International Phonetic Alphabet
PHONETICS
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International Phonetic Alphabet
PHONETICS
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Articulators
PRODUCTION
mid-sagittal MRI for vowel /i/

• Jaw
• Lips
• Tongue tip
• Tongue blade
• Velum
• Larynx

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Letter to George Gray, 1791
PRODUCTION

• , as I once made a wooden head, which spoke
  distinctly p.a. and m. so that it said pam, map,
  papa, mamma as plain as most human heads.

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Speaking machines
PRODUCTION
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Functional description
PRODUCTION

• Air pressure and reed
• voice source (cf. larynx)
• Ducts
• oral cavity
• nasal cavity
• Variable geometry
• articulation

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Anatomy of the larynx
PRODUCTION
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Voicing/phonation
PRODUCTION
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Articulation
PRODUCTION
from Mohammad (2000)
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20th-century speech synthesis
SYNTHESIS

• Review by Klatt (1987)
• Good evening radio audience, Dudley (1939)
• Text-to-speech (Bell Labs)
• http//www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/voices.html
• Festival (Univ. Edinburgh)
• http//festvox.org/voicedemos.html

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Extract the outline
SYNTHESIS
Vocal-tract geometry
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Discretise the outline
SYNTHESIS
Extracted outline
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Derive the area function
SYNTHESIS
Area function
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Compute acoustic response
SYNTHESIS
Vocal-tract transfer function
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Summary
CONCLUSION

• Sounds of English
• Darwins idea of a phonetic alphabet
• Fundamentals of speech production
• Darwins speaking machine
• Modern speech synthesis
• Further information
• http//web.bham.ac.uk/p.jackson