© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

2nd Workshop for the Internationalization of SSML

Dialogos's Position

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Motivation

Greek is a heavily inflected language• nouns• adjectives• verbs

Several inflection-related Attributes• Case• Gender• Number• (and we are not even

thinking about verbs)

How does inflection word• Inflection attributes are

shared between certain elements in the same context

• Elements might not be neighboring

Goal• Let's try to cover the most

common case• Neighboring elements

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Section 1

Inflection definition in <say-as>

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Inflection DefinitionThe 'inflection' attribute in <say-as>

Provide hints to the synthesis processor• how should the element be expanded?• which inflected version should be used?• we could also use the <e> element suggested previously

inflection="?<case> ?<gender> ?<number>"

where: <case>: [‘nominative’, ’accusative’, ’dative’,

’genitive’, ’vocative’] <gender>: [‘masculine’, ’feminine’, ’neuter’] <number>: [‘plural’, ’singular’]

<say-as interpret-as="cardinal" inflection="nominative feminine">3</say-as>Output: τρεις

<say-as interpret-as="cardinal" inflection="nominative neuter">3</say-as> Output: τρία

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Section 2

Context sensitive expansions

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Context-Sensitive SubstitutionsThe <aliasmap> element

We need to perform context-sensitive substitutions• a single token might have different substitutions• inflection-related specifier

<sub aliasmap="token">

token

</sub>

<aliasmap id=”token”>

<alias inflection=”?<case> ?<gender> ?<number>?”>

expansion1

</alias>

<alias inflection=”?<case> ?<gender> ?<number>”>

expansion2

</alias>

</aliasmap>

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Context-Sensitive SubstitutionsExample:<aliasmap> use

<sub aliasmap="κ."> κ.</sub>

<aliasmap id="κ."> <alias inflection="plural nominative"> κιλά </alias> <alias inflection="plural genitive"> κιλών </alias></aliasmap>

Input:<say-as interpret-as="cardinal" inflection="plural neuter genitive">3 κ.</say-as>

Output:τριών κιλών (three kilos)

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

Section 3

Additional <say-as> interpretations

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

<say-as>Discussion

Issue• <say-as> defines the input• there is no template for describing the way the token should

be rendered• new major SSML version should address issue

<say-as> attributes• details: NMTOKEN -> CDATA?• details="blah?param1=xxx&"• format: NMTOKEN

Two small changes to existing <say-as> without any modification• use 'details' in interpret-as="date"• use 'format' in interpret-as="phone"

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

<say-as>

'format' in interpret-as="phone"

format="n+"

Input:<say-as interpret-as="telephone" details ="3223"

format="1">(210) 555-2121</say-as>

Output:four digit groups: '210', '55', '52', '121'

© Dialogos Speech Communications S.A.

<say-as>

'details' in interpret-as="date"

<say-as interpret-as="date" format="ymd" details="dMMMMyyyy"> 2006-04-03</say-as>Output:τρεις απριλίου δύο χιλιάδες έξι

<say-as interpret-as="date" format="ymd" details="dmyyyy"> 2006-04-03</say-as>Output:τρεις τετάρτου δύο χιλιάδες έξι

<say-as interpret-as="date" format="ymd" details="MMMMyyyy"> 2006-04-03</say-as>Output:απρίλιος δύο χιλιάδες έξι