Generation of articulatory movements by using a kinematic triphone model

The method described here predicts the trajectories of articulatory movemen ts for continuous speech by using a kinematic triphone model and the minimu m-acceleration model. The kinematic triphone model, which is constructed fr om articulatory data obtained from experiments using an electro-magnetic ar ticulographic system, is characterized by three kinematic features of a tri phone and by the intervals between two successive phonemes in the triphone. After a kinematic feature of a phoneme in a given sentence is extracted, t he minimum-acceleration trajectory that coincides with the extremum of the time integral of the squared magnitude of the articulator acceleration is f ormulated. The calculation of the minimum acceleration requires only linear computation. The method predicts both the qualitative features and the qua ntitative details of experimentally observed articulation. (C) 2001 Acousti cal Society of America.