NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY

Washington, DC 20375


------------------------------------------------------------- Top
HISTORY

"The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the Navy's corporate 
laboratory. NRL conducts a broadly-based multidisciplinary 
program of scientific research and advanced technological 
development directed toward maritime applications of new and 
improved materials, techniques, equipment, system, and ocean, 
atmospheric, and space sciences and related technologies.

NRL was commissioned in 1923 by Congress for the Department of 
the Navy. Today it is a field command under the Chief of Naval 
Research and has approximately 3,600 personnel (over 1900 
research staff - nearly half of these PhD's) who address basic 
research issues concerning the Navy's environment of sea, sky, 
and space."

"The Laboratory's parent organization is the Office of Naval 
Research (ONR) which coordinates, executes, and promotes the 
science and technology programs of the United States Navy and 
Marine Corps through universities, government laboratories, and 
nonprofit and for-profit organizations." 
        (NRL home page, http://www.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/)

  
------------------------------------------------------------- Top
PROJECT: TEXT TO VOTRAX SPEECH SYNTHESIS (19   - 19   )
  
  
The purpose of the project was to devise computationally 
efficient rules for automatically converting plain English text
to a sequence of phonetic commands for a speech synthesizer. The
rules were implemented in two stages, a conversion from text
to the international phonetic alphabet (IPA) and a second 
conversion from IPA to the phonetic codes for a particular 
speech synthesizer. The experimental system used a Votrax VS-6
synthesizer (see SSSHP USA Votrax), but other synthesizers could
be accomodated by customizing the second conversion process.

In addition to the military application for secure, narrow-band
communication, it was hoped a successful outcome would be 
applicable to general computer voice output applications. A 
number of subsequent text-to-speech development projects 
reference this work as a starting point.
 
 
1976 Elovitz, H.S., R.W. Johnson, A. McHugh, and J.E. Shore,
     AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH TEXT TO PHONETICS BY MEANS
     OF LETTER-TO-SOUND RULES, NRL Report 7948, Jan 21, 1976. 
     Public release, distribution unlimited. (Copy in SSSHP USA NRL
     file.)


     Tape ?


1976 Elovitz, H., R. Johnson, A. McHugh, and J. Shore, "Letter-
     to-sound rules for automatic translation of English text to
     phonetics," IEEE Trans. Acoust. Speech and Signal Proc.
     ASSP-24, 446-459 (1976).  (K) (Copy in SSSHP USA NRL file.)


     Tape ?


1976 McHugh, A., LISTENER PREFERENCE AND COMPREHENSION TESTS OF
     STRESS ALGORITHMS FOR A TEXT-TO-PHONETIC SPEECH SYNTHESIS
     PROGRAM, NRL Rept. 8015, Sept 9, 1976. Public release, 
     distribution unlimited.(Copy in SSSHP USA NRL file.)

     Tape ?


1977 Broihier, John C., Michael J. Crowley, "A RSTS/E Audio 
     Response Application", Proc. Digital Equipment Computer 
     Users Society, Vol. 3, No. 4, USA Spring 1977, pp. 1355-
     1375. Order Entry application for the Illinois Bell 
     Telephone Co., using computer voice output.

     Included here because it contains a listing of the Naval 
     Research Laboratory's text-to-speech rules for a Votrax 
     VS-6 expressed as a program in BASIC-Plus. The intermediate
     conversion to IPA was not implemented. (Copy in SSSHP
     USA DEC file.)


------------------------------------------------------------- Top
BIOGRAPHIES


HONEY SUE ELOVITZ

1970 B.S. in mathematics, Univ. of Pittsburgh
1972 Naval Research Laboratory
1975 M.S. in computer science, Univ. of Maryland, College Park   
1988 with consulting firm (name)


RODNEY W. JOHNSON

1962 B.S. in physics, Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA
1966 Research Assoc., Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ
1967 Ph.D. in mathematics, Stanford Univ.
1968 Research Assoc., Syracuse Univ., Syracuse, NY
1970 Asst. Prof. of mathematics, Fordham Univ., New York, NY
1973 Center for Naval Analyses
1974 Naval Research Laboratory, communication sciences
1988 Entropic Speech, Inc., UNIX-based digital signal processing
     products


ASTRID SCHMIDT-NIELSEN (Astrid McHugh 1963-1976)

1963 A.B. in biology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
1972 M.S. in psychology, Univ. of Maryland
1974 Ph.D. in psychology, Univ. of Maryland
1975 Naval Research Laboratory, speech science
1976 Post-Doct. fellowship, Center for Research in Human
     Learning, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
1978 Naval Research Laboratory, voice systems, human-computer
     interaction, artificial intelligence
     (Curriculum Vitae in SSSHP USA NRL file)


JOHN E. SHORE

1968 B.S. in physics, Yale Univ., New Haven, CT
1968 Naval Research Laboratory
1974 Ph.D. in theoretical physics, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
1988 Entropic Speech, Inc., UNIX-based digital signal processing
     products


------------------------------------------------------------- Top
REVIEWED BY: