Q in make_initial_phone_labs

[Yuxiao Y]

Hi,

When I tried to make phone labs for text, I noticed that a phone called ‘Q’ was generated (the rpx accent). In the build_unitsel.scm file, it says Q is a replacement of ‘segment names that cause problems.’ But there’s no Qs in the arctic mlf.

So I’m really curious about this ‘Q.’ What are ‘segment names that cause problems?’ How should it be treated when calculating diphone coverage?

Thanks

[Simon]

Q is the glottal stop. In some phone sets, the symbol ? is used (since that’s closest to the IPA symbol) – but that character would cause problems in HTK because it is used as part of the pseudo-regular expression language for state clustering.

Treat it just like any other phone as far as coverage is concerned.

Remember that the phone set depends on the dictionary you are using, and there is not necessarily any correspondence between symbols in one phone set and those in another: they are somewhat arbitrary.

[Author]

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