ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1999
ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1999

Developing a voiced information retrieval system for the portuguese language capable to handle both brazilian and portuguese spoken versions

M. N. Souza, E. J. Caprini, C. G. Machado, M. V. Ludolf, L. P. Calôba, J. M. Seixas, F. G. Resende, S. L. Netto, Diamantino R. Freitas, Joao Paulo Teixeira, C. Espain, V. Pera, F. Moreira

The two versions of the Portuguese language, the one spoken in Portugal and the one spoken in Brazil differ both phonetically and lexically. The paper reports on a menu driven voiced information retrieval system, BomdePapo, which can handle both versions of the language. The system was developed in Delphi during a research project joining teams from the Universidade do Porto, Portugal, and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Information retrieval is processed through a tree menu. The system, BomdePapo, is currently being tested on an application for accessing information on sports, culture and politics news. The paper also reports on the main phonetic differences between the two versions.