Syllable-based prosodic analysis of Amharic read speech

Abstract

Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia and belongs to the under-resourced languages. Analyzing a new corpus of Amharic read speech, this contribution surveys syllable-based prosodic variations in f0, duration and intensity to develop suitable prosody models for speech synthesis and recognition. The article starts with a brief description of the Amharic script, the prosodic analysis methods, an accentuation experiment using resynthesis and a perceptual test. The main part summarizes stress-related analysis results for f0, duration and intensity and their interrelations. The quantitative variations of Amharic are comparable with the range in well-examined languages. The observed modifications in syllable duration and mean f0 proved to be relevant for stress perception as demonstrated in the perceptual test with resynthesis stimuli.