Re: [Espeak-general] eSpeak problem with English @U phoneme combination

[Reece D. <ms...@go...>]

2009/8/11 Silas S. Brown <ss...@ca...>:
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 08:10:52PM +0100, Reece Dunn wrote:
>> Try specifying a British English speaker (the output will vary
>> depending on the specific accent of en you choose).
>
> Thanks Reece, but I tried -v en, -v en-n, -v en-rp, -v en-sc
> and even -v en-wi and -v en-wm and they ALL had the r- inserted.
> The only variant that does not insert r- is en-us (the American
> voice), which is the opposite of what we'd expect.  en-us says
> ,Imju:n@Ugl'0bjUlIn but the @U combination glitches in the audio.

Hmm, strange. I would have expected it the other way around (O_O).

/,Imju:n@Ugl'0bjUlIn/ (/@U/) sounds disjoint between the /@/ and /U/.
/,Imju:n@gl'0bjUlIn/ (/@/) works, but is probably not what you are after.
/,Imju:n@;Ugl'0bjUlIn/ (/@;U/) does not add the /r-/, but still does
not sound right.

My OALD 7th ed. does not have immunoglobulin, but does have immuno-*
words that it transcribes with /@U/ as you have listed.

IIUC, the /@U/ is supposed to transcribe an 'oh' sound (but not quite,
as /@/ is shorter). Looking at the transcription for abalone, the OALD
references /@U/ for RP and /oU/ for GA english. Indeed,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English does not list
/@U/ (/əʊ/), but does list /oU/ (/oʊ/), as one of the possible
diphones supported in English.

/,Imju:noUgl'0bjUlIn/ (/oU/) gives you what you are after, kind of.

Not sure why eSpeak does not support /@U/ though, nor why it appears
to be rhoticising non-rhotic accents.

HTH,
- Reece