Pronunciation models for conversational speech
Keith Johnson · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2005
Using a pronunciation dictionary of clear speech citation forms a segment deletion rate of nearly 12% is found in a corpus of conversational speech. The number of apparent segment deletions can be reduced by constructing a pronunciation dictionary that records one or more of the actual pronunciations found in conversational speech; however, the resulting empirical pronunciation dictionary often fails to include the citation pronunciation form. Issues involved in selecting pronunciations for a dictionary for linguistic, psycholinguistic, and ASR research will be discussed. One conclusion is that Ladefoged may have been the wiser for avoiding the business of producing pronunciation dictionaries. [Supported by NIDCD Grant No. R01 DC04330-03.]