ISCA Archive Interspeech 2004
ISCA Archive Interspeech 2004

The efficient generation of pronunciation dictionaries: human factors during bootstrapping

Marelie Davel, Etienne Barnard

Bootstrapping has significant potential for the efficient generation of linguistic resources such as electronic pronunciation dictionaries. We describe a system and an approach to bootstrapping that have been used to develop such dictionaries, and report on experiments that we have conducted to investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. Encouraging results have been obtained: even developers with limited linguistic experience can develop accurate pronunciation models in substantially less time than a trained pronunciation expert takes using conventional methods.