Fuzzy-based algorithm for Fongbe continuous speech segmentation

Text-independent speech segmentation is a challenging topic in computer-based speech recognition systems. This paper proposes a novel time-domain algorithm based on fuzzy knowledge for continuous speech segmentation task via a nonlinear speech analysis. Short-term energy, zero-crossing rate and the singularity exponents are the time-domain features that we have calculated in each point of speech signal in order to exploit relevant information for generating the significant segments. This is down for the phoneme or syllable identification and the transition fronts. Fuzzy logic technique helped us to fuzzify the calculated features into three complementary sets namely: low, medium, high and to perform a matching phase using a set of fuzzy rules. The outputs of our proposed algorithm are silence, phonemes, or syllables. Once evaluated, our algorithm produced the best performances with efficient results on Fongbe language (an African tonal language spoken especially in Benin, Togo and Nigeria).