Sentence-Final Prosody Analysis of Japanese Communicative Speech Based on the Command-Response Model

Aiming at communicative speech synthesis, we analyzed sentence-final prosody characteristics through subjective impression on constituting lexicons. Since Japanese sentence-final particles and postpositionals are expected to be employed to generate communicative prosody showing speaker's intention and attitudes, we designed 52 single-phrase utterances showing different strength of the speaker's impressions about judgment. These impressions were quantified in Semantic Differential (SD) scales. F0 contour characteristics were analyzed by using the command-response model. To cope with sentence final F0 characteristics, an additional accent command was introduced for F0 rise and drop of sentence-final particles. The analysis showed systematic communicative prosody control by the accent command reflecting effect of judgment impressions which can be obtained from constituting lexicons. These results indicate possibility of sentence-final prosody control using impression obtained from lexicons constituting output sentences.