
                    About the Speech Dictionary

Does your Macintosh totally mangle your daughters name when reading it aloud?  Instead of spending time explaining to little Szchitt* why Mr. Mac cant say her name right, why not just fix it?

The sample Speech Dictionary file is included to illustrate Tex-Edits ability to use a word exception dictionary to improve the quality of speech.

Show me how it works!

To illustrate, turn Speech ON, select the text below and choose Read Selection in the Sound menu:

When Wednesday finally gets here, I am going to take Felix to the vet, finish my report on the Roosevelt administration, watch the Redsox game, and get ready for the big Halloween party.

Now, turn Speech OFF, drag the Speech Dictionary file OUT of Tex-Edits folder, turn Speech back ON, and again choose Read Selection.  See the difference?  The boldface words have special dictionary pronunciations.

(Note: The word exception dictionary will only be used if it is named Speech Dictionary and resides in the same folder as Tex-Edit Plus.)

Whats going on here?

When you choose one of the Read commands in the Sound menu, Tex-Edit reads the text selection aloud.  Sometimes words are mispronounced.  The Speech Dictionary fixes this by overriding Speech Managers standard pronunciation rules with rules that you can make up yourself.

How do I create my own pronunciations?

Using a special tool, such as Simon Frasers DictionaryEdit program, you can add special pronunciation directions for any word.  Basically, you open the Speech Dictionary file and then enter the word whose pronunciation you wish to override followed by a phonetic representation of the correct pronunciation.  Get DictionaryEdit at:
	<http://www.nearside.com/trans-tex/software/dictionary-edit1.3.sit.hqx>

It is also possible to use a resource creator such as Rez or Resorcerer.

Warning: technical info ahead!

I have enclosed the following information for programmers and for those who dont wish to use DictionaryEdit for some reason.

The Speech Dictionary file consists of a single resource of type dict.  Here is the Rez source code for the sample included with Tex-Edit Plus.  The interesting portions are in bold:

resource 'dict' ( 128, "sampleDictResource" )
{
	smRoman, langEnglish, verUS, secondCount,
	{
		pron, { tx, "ROOSEVELT",	ph, "_1EHf_d1IY_1AAr" },
		pron, { tx, "CHELSEA",	ph, "_C1EHls2IY" },
		pron, { tx, "AMHERST",	ph, "_2UXmAXrst" },
		pron, { tx, "REDSOX",	ph, "_r1EHd_s1AAks" },
		pron, { tx, "HALLOWEEN",	ph, "_h1AAl2OW_w1IYn" },
		pron, { tx, "FELIX",		ph, "_f1IYl2IHks_D2UX_k1AEt" },
		pron, { tx, "WEDNESDAY",	ph, "_m1IHd_w1IYk" },
	},
};

Note that secondCount should be replaced with the current time (in Mac format).  Each word is paired up with its phonetic pronunciation.  No spaces are allowed within the words.

Here is the phonetic symbol dictionary.  See how these symbols are combined to create the phonetic representations above (from Inside Macintosh: Sound, Apple Computer):

Symbol	Example
%		silence
@		inhalation
AE		bat
EY		bait
AO		caught
AX		about
IY		beet
EH		bet
IH		bit
AY		bite
IX		roses
AA		cot
UW		boot
UH		book
UX		bud
OW		boat
AW		bout
OY		boy
b		bin
C		chin
d		din
D		them
f		fin
g		gain
h		hat
J		jump
k		kin
l		limb
m		mat
n		nat
N		tang
p		pin
r		ran
s		sin
S		shin
t		tin
T		thin
v		van
w		wet
y		yet
z		zen
Z		measure

Here are prosodic control symbols.  Note how the prosodic controls are combined with the phonetic symbols above (from Inside Macintosh: Sound, Apple Computer):

Type				Symbol	Symbol name	Description or illustration of effect
Lexical stress:							Marks stress within a word (optional)
	Primary stress	1					AEnt2IHsIXp1EYSAXn   (anticipation)
	Secondary stress	2
Syllable breaks:							Marks syllable breaks within a word (optional)
	Syllable mark		=		(equal)			AEn=t2IH=sIX=p1EY=SAXn (an-ti-ci-pa-tion)
Word prominence:							Placed before the affected word
	Destressed		~		(asciitilde)		Used for words with minimal informational content
	Normal stress	_		(underscore)		Used for information-bearing words
	Emphatic stress	+		(plus)			Used for words requiring special emphasis
Prosodic:								Placed before the affected phoneme
	Pitch rise		/		(slash)			Pitch will rise on the following phoneme
	Pitch fall		\		(backslash)		Pitch will fall on the following phoneme
	Lengthen phoneme	>		(greater)		Lengthens the duration of the following phoneme
	Shorten phoneme	<		(less)			Shortens the duration of the following phoneme

Have fun.

* I know of no person by this name, living or dead.  I just combined random characters to illustrate a point.  If this is your name, then I humbly apologize.  If this is your childs name, then I think you should be turned over to Child Protective Services.  ;-)

(Document Revised 11/3/00)