Automatic Syllabification Rules for ASSAMESE Language
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Directory of Open Access Journals Laba Kr. Thakuria et al Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 2( Version 1), February 2014, pp.446-450 RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS Automatic Syllabification Rules for ASSAMESE Language Laba Kr. Thakuria1, Prof. P.H. Talukdar2 Department of Instrumentation & USIC, Gauhati University Guwahati, India Department of Instrumentation & USIC, Gauhati University Guwahati, India Abstract For unit selection based text-to-speech system, syllabification acts as a backbone. Based on different structures of different languages syllabification rules are also varies. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyse the syllabification rules for Assamese language. Imparting education and training, preferably, in the local/regional language is urgently necessary in today’s context in order to maintain social harmony and homogeneity. Language heterogeneity is a global problem in bringing all the benefits of Information Technology (IT) to our doorsteps. Syllabification rules are implemented into an algorithm which later can be integrated into a text-to-speech system. The analysis of these rules has been taken using 10000 phonetically rich words which reports to produce a comparable result of 99% accuracy as compared to manual syllabification. Keywords: Assamese language, diphthongs, phonemes, syllable, text-to-speech. I. Introduction II. Assamese Language And Its Syllable is a unit of sound which is larger Phonological Structure than phoneme and smaller than a word [5]. Assamese is an Indo-Aryan language spoken Syllabification algorithms are mainly used in text-to- by the Assamese people in general. The mixed Aryan speech (TTS) systems in producing natural sounding culture and the mongoloid culture gave birth to a new speech, and in speech recognizers in detecting out-of- culture. So, every community from this region always vocabulary words[4]. Syllable forms as a gap exhibits their indigenous culture with diversity. It is between a phonemes and words [1]. Various attempts the link language for the people living in Assam and have been made to define a syllable earlier. adjoining states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, According to phonetics it is defined with respect to Nagaland etc. This language has come from Sanskrit its articulation whereas in phonology it is simply as its offshoot, through different stages of termed as a sequence of phonemes [3].When a word development. is broken down into its syllables the process is called syllabification. As we humans also syllabify a word, as far as possible before speaking if possible and phonemic segmentation if not, text-to-speech systems usually use syllable based approach as a basic unit [6]. A syllable based text-to-speech system performs always better than a phoneme level approach in terms of naturalness and easy in boundary analysis.In this study there is an honest endeavour to syllabify ASSAMESE language as well as implemented an algorithm which further automatically divides words into its constituent syllables.It is the aim of the proposed paper to study the phonetic variations of Assamese language to develop syllabification rules for Assamese language. the algorithm was tested Fig-1: Proto Indo-European Family Tree using 5000 phonetically rich words. The degree of accuracy of the algorithm is 99%. The ASSAMESE phonemic inventory The research paper is organized as consists of eight vowels, ten diphthongs, twenty-one Assamese Language and its Phonological structure. It consonants and two semi vowels [3]. The also describes the Family tree of the Assamese ASSAMESE vowels and consonants are shown in the Language. Then it describes the Syllable structure tables below. and its algorithm with rules. This section also includes its working methodology. www.ijera.com 446 | P a g e Laba Kr. Thakuria et al Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 2( Version 1), February 2014, pp.446-450 Table 1: Vowels in ASSAMESE. There are twenty-three consonant sounds Front Central Back including two semi-vowels in Assamese Language. Close i u û Table 4: Consonants in ASSAMESE Half-close e ê o ô Nature of Alveol Vel Half-open ɛ ɔ Articulat Bi-labial ar Palatal ar Glottal ion Open A Plosive p b t d K g The vowel sounds in Assamese Language d̪ ɡ occur in all the three positions, namely word initially, ph bʱ th ʱ kh ʱ medially, and finally. Examples are shown below. Fricative s z x ɦ Table 2: Examples of Vowel Sounds Nasal M n ŋ Monophthongs Initially Medially Finally Lateral l /aaitaa/ Rolled r l /i/ /i/ ‘he’ ‘grandmother’ /xi/ ‘he’ Semi Vowel w j /deutaa/ /e/ /ek/ ‘one ’ ‘father /de/ ‘give’ III. Syllabification /bɛ l/ ‘kind of /kɛ nɛ / Syllables are considered as the set of / ɛ / /ɛ taa/ ‘one piece’ Fruit’ ‘how’ smallest speech sound in a language that distinguishes one word from another. The key /kalaa/ objective of this study is to set the syllabification /a/ /aam/ ‘mango’ /bal/ ‘child’ ‘black’ rules for ASSAMESE language using an algorithm /u/ /ur/ ‘fly’ /phul/‘flower’ /saku/ ‘eye’ which syllabify a word. In syllabification the location /û/ / ûkani/ ‘leech’ /bûl/ ‘color’ of some syllables in word plays a great role. Syllable /gondha/ shows different behaviour in a form of articulation /o/ /osar/ ‘near’ ‘smell’ /lo/ ‘iron’ features and pronunciation if it occurs in word initial, / ɔ kanmaan/ /bɔ l/ final or intermediary position[7]. In this research / ɔ / ‘little’ ‘strength’ /lɔ /e ‘take’ work the syllabification is actually achieved by looking at different patterns of syllables meaning that There are ten diphthongs in Assamese Language as we can experiment with monosyllabic, disyllabic, follows: trisyllabic and polysyllabic. Thus, the purpose of this work is to formulate an Table 3: Diphthongs in Assamese Language algorithm for dividing Assamese words into syllables. Diphthongs Initially Medially Finally /paai/ ‘to IV. Methodology /ai/ /aai/ ‘mother’ /kaait/ ‘thorn’ reach’ The methodologies followed in the present /ei/ /eitu/ ‘this ’ /xeitu/ ‘that’ /dei/ ‘okay’ study are: /oi/ /ekaanabboi/ a) Examine Assamese syllables structures from / oi / ‘interjection’ /ghoiniiyek/ ‘wife’ ‘ninety one’ linguistic literature.[6] b) Group discussions with linguists. c) Dialect variations. / ɔ inya / / ɔ i/ ‘somebody else’ /p ɔ itaa / ‘cockroch’ /h ɔ i / ‘yes’ d) Study of previous works performed [2]. /ui/ /ui/ ‘white ant’ /dui/ ‘two’ V. Subjects /iu/ Data was obtained from the Assamese / ouxadh / /mou/ Dictionary (Hemkosha) and also from the native /ou/ ‘medicine’ / aaloukik / ‘spiritual’ ‘honey’ speakers of the respective language and was / auxi/ ‘no moon /paautaa/ ‘one who /xaau/ syllabified by five different speakers between 20 and / au/ day’ get’ ‘curse’ 25 years of age participated in the study. The entire /eu/ /deuri/’personal title’ /deu/ ‘priest’ test was done on two male speakers and three female /ua/ /uaar/ ‘cover’ /guaal/ ‘milkman’ speakers respectively. On the basis of these experiments almost all the syllable templates available in Assamese were found. About 5000 www.ijera.com 447 | P a g e Laba Kr. Thakuria et al Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 2( Version 1), February 2014, pp.446-450 monosyllabic, disyllabic and polysyllabic words were iii. For a word having VCV* structure , then experimented to find out the syllable structure in syllable boundary is marked after SECOND Assamese. For the words of Assamese having vowel. ie VCV/, VCV/C, VCV/CV, different structure see the Appendix A. VCV/CVCetc iv. For a word having CVV* structure , then VI. Procedure syllable boundary is marked after SECOND The entire five subjects were asked to record vowel. ie the words of Assamese language, which were CVV/,CVV/C,CVV/CV,CVV/CVC,CVV/V selected for contain almost all the syllable templates. etc The recording was done in a quiet room with a noise v. For a word having VCC* structure , then cancelling microphone using the recording facilities syllable boundary is marked after second of a typical multimedia computer system. The CONSONANT. ie VCC/VCV, VCC/V, boundaries of syllable were marked according to the VCC/VC etc pronunciation of the team. The voice was recorded vi. For a word having CCV structure , then NO and processed on Audacity and Cool Edit Pro. By syllable boundary is marked. observing formants through spectrogram, syllable SYLLABIFICATION is only makred after structure and boundary were evaluated. The completion of the word. ie CCV/ equipment used in recording was a microphone with vii. For a word having CCVC* structure , then a frequency response of 48000 Hz with a 16 bit syllable boundary is marked after first vowel. sound card and high quality speakers. ie CCV/C, CCV/CV, CCV/CVC,CCV/CVV etc VII. Result viii. For a word having CVCV structure , then The recording was done on 5000 distinct words syllable boundary is marked after first vowel. extracted from a Assamese corpus and then compared ie CV/CV, CV/CVV etc with manual syllabification of the same words to ix. For a word having CVVCX structure , then measure accuracy. Heterogeneous nature of texts CHECK X obtained from the News Paper, Feature Articles Text A) If x=vowel(V) ie CVVCV, boundary will books, Radio news, short stories etc[2]. A list of found after second vowel distinct words of 5000 most frequently occurring B) If x=consonant(C) ie CVVCC , boundary words chosen for testing the algorithm. The 5000 will found between the two vowels. words results some 20,655 syllables .The algorithm achieves an overall accuracy of 98.05% when C. Implementation compared with the same words manually syllabified All the above rules were implemented as a by an expert.