ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1991
ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1991

An efficient implementation of the n-best algorithm for lexical access

Peter Nowell, Henry S. Thompson

This paper describes an efficient implementation of the N-Best algorithm for lexical access. An extension has been made to the original algorithm which reduces the search space by 80% whilst retaining over 99% of the top ten optimal paths produced by the standard N-Best algorithm. We have also found that pruning can reduce the search space further by a further 50% without a significant loss of optimal paths. Keywords: Lexical Access, Dynamic Programming, N-Best Algorithm, Path Re-generation, Beam-Width Pruning