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<Paper uid="P84-1019">
  <Title>COMPUTER SIMULATION OF SPONTANEOUS SPEECH PRODUCTION</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="79" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1. Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Several text production models implemented on computers are able to print grammatical sentences and coherent text (see e.g. contributions in All~n, 1983, Mann &amp; Matthiessen, 1982). There is, however, to my knowledge no such verbal production system with spoken output, simulating spontaneous speech, except the experimental version of Commentator to be described.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The task to design a speech production system cannot be solved just by attaching a speech synthesis device to the output instead of a printer. The whole production model has to be reconsidered if the system is to produce natural sound and prosody, in particular if the system is to have some psychological reality by simulating the hesitation pauses, and speech errors so common in spontaneous speech.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> This paper discusses some of the problems in the light of the computer model of verbal production presented PSn Sigurd (1982), Fornell (1983). For experimental purposes a simple speech synthesis device (VOTRAX) has been used.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> The Problem of producing naturally sounding utterances is also met in text-to-speech systems (see e.g. Carlson &amp; Granstr~m, 1978). Such systems, however, take printed text as input and turn it into a phonetic representation, eventually sound. Because of the differences between spelling and sound such systems have to face special problems, e.g. to derive single sounds from the letter combinations t__hh, ng, sh, ch in such words as the,  thing, shy, change.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> 2. Co,~entator as a speech production system  The general outline of Con~entator is presented in fig. I. The input to this model is perceptual data or equivalent values, e.g. information about persons and objects on a screen. These primary perceptual facts constitute the basis for various calculations in order to derive secondary facts and draw concluslons about movements and relations such as distances, directions, right/left, over/under, front/back, closeness, goals and intentions of the persons involved etc. The Commentator produces comments consisting of grammatical sentences making up coherent and well-formed text (although often soon boring). Some typical comments on a marine scene are: THE SUB-</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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