Text-to-speech processor, and parser for use in such a processor

摘要

A text parser (34) for a text-to-speech processor accepts a text stream and parses the text stream to (36) detect non-spoken characters. A text generator generates pre-designated text sequences in response to non-spoken characters, such as special character sequences or character sequences which match format templates. A speech command generator (37) generates speech commands in response to detecting of non-spoken characters such as non-spoken characters which affect text style, font, underlining, etc. A text-to-speech converter (26) converts spoken text parsed by the parser and text generated by the text generator into speech, the text-to-speech converter being operable in response to speech commands generated by the speech command generator. According to the invention, it is not necessary to pre-process text files in preparation for text-to-speech conversion, and arbitrary files which contain both spoken and non-spoken characters may be converted easily.