EXPERIMENTAL PHONETICS AND SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

The relations be tween Phonetics and Speech Technology have been the focus of a long discussion in the literature of both disciplines. This discussion has shown, on the one hand, the undeniable need of linguistic knowledge for the development of these technologies, and, on the other, the problems and limitations caused to Speech Technology by the lack of adequate phonetic descriptions and models, a fact that has caused in many cases the search for ‘alternative paths’, mainly in Statistics and Probability. This paper aims to offer a personal view about the relations between both disciplines, today and in the near future, by analyzing, on the one hand, to what extent phonetic knowledge can contribute to the development of Speech Technologies in the coming years, and, on the ot her, in which ways Speech Technologies can help to improve the methodologies and results of the theorical work on Experimental Phonetics.