Phonological rules for a semantics-to-speech system of Japanese: the segmental phase.

Abstract

Segmental-phonological rules are constructed for the phonological component of a semantics-to-speech system of Japanese in a quest for phonetic form generation process to be incorporated into indispensable knowledge for attaining high quality speech syn thesisfrom concept. Through observation of nonmoraic lexical base forms obtaining moraicity on the phonological surface, it is shown that the quintessential mission of the segmental phonology of Japanese lies in preservation of mora structure. The seg mentalrules are classified into three groups: cyclic and noncyclic segmental-phonological rules, and noncyclic phonetic rules, among which mora-preserving rules are concentrated in the cyclic rule class.