An open-source rule-based syllabification tool for Brazilian Portuguese

BackgroundThe automatic syllabification process is an essential prerequisite for speech synthesis systems. However, the task is not trivial, and several techniques have been adopted over the last decade. Furthermore, while there are many public resources for some languages (e.g., English and Japanese), the resources for Brazilian Portuguese (BP) are still limited. This paper discusses ways to diminish this drawback, through the implementation of an open-source syllabification system for BP.MethodsThe proposed tool is based on published rule-based algorithms, with some new proposals, especially in the treatment of words with diphthongs and hiatus.ResultsComputer experiments were performed on a randomly chosen extract of the CETEN-Folha text corpus, and the results showed the percentage of correctly syllabified words of 99%.ConclusionsA subjective evaluation was also conducted in order to compare the elaborated syllabification algorithm with the reference one within a text-to-speech system for BP. All developed codes and databases are publicly available.

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