Integrated-multilingual speech recognition using universal phonological features in a functional speech production model

An outline and general design of an integrated-multilingual speech recognizer is presented, focusing on its key novelty of cross-language portability. This recognizer extends the one described by Deng and Sun (see J. Acoust. Soc. Am., vol.95, no.5, p.2702-19, 1994) in that the overlapping features designed originally for American English are improved, generalized, and need only a slight expansion to cover Mandarin/Cantonese Chinese and Canadian French. It also enhances the recognizer of Deng and Sameti (see IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Proc., vol.4, p.301-306, 1996) in that the object of dynamic modeling is moved from the observable acoustic domain to the hidden production-affiliated variables defined in the task-dynamic model of speech production. The major components of the recognizer and the related training and recognition algorithms are described.