NeoSpeech Pronunciation Symbols

[LaneKeys]

Recently I have begun work on compiling a lexicon of some of the words mispronounced by NeoSpeech Kate and Paul voices. However, I find their phonetic table a bit difficult to decipher, and there does not seem to be any available documentation as far as I've found. Has anyone here had experience using it, Or know where I can find a list of the symbols, and what phonemes they stand for?
Thanks in advance.

[D.Leikin]

When I tried to use

…\Program Files\NeoSpeech\Paul16\lib\UserDicEng.exe

to handle the NeoSpeech’s pronunciation file

…\Program Files\NeoSpeech\Paul16\data-common\userdict\userdict_eng.csv

I’ve got the impression that pronunciation symbols used in UserDicEng.exe for vowels and consonants look pretty much the same as the standard IPA codes:

http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/ipafonts.html

[LaneKeys]

Interesting. Thanks.
It seems NeoSpeech has its own font for these symbols. Since I use a screen reader, I guess that explains why I saw a bunch of random characters. However, I am close to finding out what they all do, and am compiling a list of all the valid ones, with what they stand for included, similar to Acapela's own lexicon editor. I can post it here, if anyone is interested.
Also, in case any changes have been made, is the latest build still from July 2005?
Thanks.

[D.Leikin]

Just ran across a table that might prove helpful


Its pdf version is here

Not sure whether or not any significant changes have been made since July 2005

[LaneKeys]

Thanks. That does help to fill in some of the more obscure combinations. Although it seems NeoSpeech has put quite a variation on the way to type the symbols via keyboard.

[D.Leikin]

I can post it here, if anyone is interested.

I believe that the table of Neospeech pronunciation symbols could be of huge help to users for the following reasons. First of all, the table would let one introduce phoneme edits directly at the engine level, which might help find a solution to some pronunciation issues that cannot be easily resolved by using word substitutions within the Basic Editor. In addition, the use of a proprietary lexicon file lets one handle Neospeech pronunciations separately to make sure the edits do not affect other voices.

So my guess is it would be great if you could post it here. Thanks

[LaneKeys]

This is a work in progress. Though I have determined what the majority of the symbols stand for, there are one or two that seem to have no affect on the way words are spoken.

Important
When in the "add word" and "modify word' dialogues, in order to have the voice speak the word, all words must begin with consonants. Once the word is edited to your liking, you may delete the consonant from the beginning. Voices will only pronounce the words once they are a part of the dictionary. The reason for this is unknown.

Vowels
Rather than having a single character stand for an accent mark, each vowel is given a separate symbol to specify the level of emphasis placed upon it. Generally, there are three levels of stress available to each vowel sound. In the following listing, vowels are ordered as follows: no stress, primary stress, secondary stress.

! 1 Q fAther
!i 1i Qi bUY
!u 1u Qu nOW
# 3 S sAW
#i 3i Si vOIce
% 5 U hUt
F 6 V hEAd
Fi 6i Vi sAY
' 7 W hUt (see notes)
( 8 X hAt
e 9 Y hEAd (see notes)
i : Z hIt
i= := Z= hEAt
o ; [ sAW (see notes)
ou ;u [u lOW
u < \ fOOt
u= <= \= fOOd
> Ago, Upon (see notes)
= sign change (see notes)

Notes
At a glance, there are a few symbols which seem to be redundant. While they do not have any noticeable affect on the pronunciation of a word when used alone, in conjunction with other symbols, the fluidity is sufficiently altered. For example, typing "v3is" will produce the word "voice"; however, "v;is" produces a rather unnatural sound. Because of this, I have attempted to list the combinations that produce the most natural sound wherever possible.
The symbol ">" produces an unaccented sound, like "a" in "ago"; however, the same affect can be achieved by using the "5" symbol.
The "=" symbol used alone will produce no sound whatsoever; it is only necessary where noted above.

Consonants
b BoB
d DaD
f Father
g Good
h Have
k CaKe
l Look
m MoM
n NooN
p PoP
r Rap
s SauCe
t ToT
v ValVe
z Zebra
A CHop
B Jam
* THin
+ THen
, SHop
. siNG
w Wet
j Yell
- meaSure

If anyone has any questions, feel free to post them here and I will answer them as best I can.

[mellow-yellow]

For those using Acapela voices, the Phoneme Helper in Text Aloud (Tools -> Pronunciation Dictionary Maintenance -> New Dictionary Entry -> Phoneme Helper) seems to follow (more or less) arpabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpabet) for the Acapela Rachel22 (UK English), which as that link shows, can roughly be mapped onto IPA. This seems more elegant (though not free) than installing an Ubuntu (or similar) Virtual Machine on Windows to then install festival to then map arpabet through XML (Sable -- http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festi ... al_10.html).