Are there some words that cannot be generated?

[TomZZZZ]

Hello Everyone
I am new to the TextAloud forum. I have read most of your questions and replies, to which I have received valuble insight to the workings of TextAloud, Thank you.
I understand the functions of the Pronunciation Dictionary Maintenance. I have had excellent results with working with TextAloud. However, I have one word that I cannot seem to get right.
Not counting Microsoft Sam, I have 4 voices AT&T Crystal16, AT&T Mike16, Acapela Heather22, Acapela Ryan22, and they all stumble over the word ( Inaugural )
Are there some words that cannot be generated?
Thank you in advance

[PHenry1026]

Greetings:

I have used the word Inaugural in both AT&T Mike and Crystal and both pronounce Inaugural perfectly without any stumbles. AT&T Natural Voices can pronounce any regular English word perfectly. Only phonemes from imported foreign words (usually French, German or Portuguese) have to be approximated.

I suspect you are having problems with the pronunciation of Inaugural, because you are using the Pronunciation Maintenance Dictionary incorrectly. As a general rule the Pronunciation Maintenance Dictionary should only be used to pronounce words with special symbols (such as, Ælfgifu, Zúñiga, François, œuvre) that cannot be handled by the voices phoneme dictionary.

As a first step to pronouncing Inaugural properly you should turn off all your Pronunciation Maintenance Dictionaries and see if this clears up the pronunciation of Inaugural.

As a second step you can guarantee the correct pronunciation of Inaugural for AT&T Natural Voices by using the AT&T phoneme dictionary located at:

C:\Program Files\ATTNaturalVoices\TTS1.4\Desktop\data\en_us.dict

The phoneme for Inaugural, if you are using AT&T phoneme editor is

ih n 0 ao 1 g y ax r 0 ax l 0

0 = syllable not stressed
1 = syllable has primary stress
2 = syllable has secondary stress




P.S. be sure to exit and restart TA3 before testing.