David H Griggs

US Patent:

44356170, Mar 6, 1984

Filed:

Aug 13, 1981

Appl. No.:

6/292717

Inventors:

David T. Griggs - Baltimore MD

International Classification:

G10L 100

US Classification:

381 44

Abstract:

A speech-controlled phonetic device utilizes a two-tier approach for converting an audio input into visual form. The device basically comprises: various components for identifying different phonemes, such as a sound separator, various sensors and transducers, a vowel scanner, a vowel transducer, and a diphthong transducer; an input synchronizer; a transcriber processor; and a printer or display device. The two-tier approach involves a first tier, wherein the identified speech sounds are broken down into syllabits (groupings of classes of sound), the spoken sequence of those syllabits is separated into possible words, and the grouping of the syllabits is indicated. The second tier involves the use of stored words with those respective groupings, but narrowed down to essential phonemes only. Thus, the second tier acts to eliminate, from such possible words, all except a specific word (the actually spoken word), which contains each of the detected phonemes in the proper sequence. Further features of the invention include a vowel identification circuit using both formant peak detection and envelope detection-comparison techniques, and the use of an input synchronizer to provide phoneme identifiers to the transcriber processor.