Aspekte van 'n grafeem-na-foneemomsetter vir Afrikaans: ervaring in die African Speech Technology-projek

Abstract

Aspects of a grapheme-to-phoneme converter for Afrikaans: experience in the African Speech Technology project. The main purpose of this article is to describe the contribution of the phonetician/phonologist as team member in the DACST funded project of the consortium African Speech Technology: Promoting the development of the official languages of South Africa through language and speech technology applications. The focus is on the development of a grapheme-to-phoneme converter within PATANA (PATtern ANAlysis), AST's enabling technological tool. A description of the most important constructs is followed by the different steps towards the final product. Three rule-based modules are necessary for a proper functioning of an Afrikaans grapheme-to-phoneme converter: syllable boundaries insertion rules, stress placement rules, and rules translating graphemes to (deterministic) phonemes. The development thereof will be covered, as well as other, secondary sections of PATANA for Afrikaans, such as building a lexicon. Special reference is made to the way in which the phonetic annotations were done, as well as to some problematic aspects thereof. Finally, the relative value of the sources developed in this project will be evaluated, by concentrating on the cooperation between linguist and engineer. A brief focus on the benefits as well as negative factors of this collaboration concludes the article.