A Novel Model of F0 Contours Prediction for Continuous Speech

F0 （fundamental frequency） contour was studied under different prosodic environment in continuous speech and a novel model of F0 contours prediction was proposed. It describes syllabic F0 contour with two points, one curve and duration. The curve represents two optimal points of controlling parameters. The duration represents the syllabic duration. The prosodic characters of controlling parameters were analyzed by CART （Class and Regression Tree）. A set of controlling parameters was analyzed, which reflects the linguistic environment and prosodic structure. Then it sets up the model of F0 contours prediction with the two optimal controlling parameters and F0 templates. The end pitch value of previous syllable as special prosodic parameters was used to keep the continuity of fore-and-aft syllable. It focuses on looking out the main prosodic clues hiding in F0 contours and applying it to simplify the model for prediction. The results of synthesis experiment show that the performance of the prediction method is appreciated.