Speech synthesis evaluation corpora

[ZL Handley <zoe.handley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I am currently working on the evaluation of speech synthesis for
use in computer-assisted language learning for my PhD. In
particular the evaluation of both French and English speech
synthesisers for use in language learning and teaching.

I have found a lot of literature on the subject of the evaluation of
speech synthesis however I am finding it difficult finding the corpora
that are used in the proposed evaluation paradigms, in particular for
French which is the language I am most interested in.

To date I have found the corpora of part of the EUROM1, BDSONS,
and BDBRUIT corpora for testing French (available from
http://www.icp.grenet.fr/Relator/french/eurom1.html). However the
full written corpora are not available at this address and I cannot
find them elsewhere.

- I was wondering whether anyone knew where I could get the full
written corpora from?
- Where I coud get documentation on the construction of this
corpus from?

My most pressing need is to find the corpora for intellibibility tests
for French:
The following articles are not available in my library, I was therefore
wondering whether anyone could tell me whether they are worth
ordering, do they have the written corpora in them?

Bacriand P. Graillot, Intelligibilité de Phrases en Parole
    Naturelle, Codées et de Synthèse. 1986, CNET.
Benoit,C. Intelligibility Test for the Assessment of French
    Synthesisers using Smeantically Unpredicatble
    Sentences. in ESCA Workshop on Speech
    Input/Output Assessment and Speech Databases.
    1989. Noordwijkerhout.
Combescure,P., 20 Listes de Dix Phrases Phonétiquement
    Equilibrées. Revue d'Acoustique, 1981. 56: p. 34-38.
Graillot, P., F. Emerard, and L. J, Tests de rime appliqués à
                des systèmes de synthèse par diphones. 1983, CNET.

Or are there other articles on this subject in which I will find the
corpora?

Thanks in advance

Zoe Handley
----------------------------------------------------------
MPhil by research (subject: Evaluation of speech synthesis for computer assisted langauge learning)
Centre for Computational Linguistics - MB/C25c
UMIST PO Box 88  Manchester M60 1QD UK
zoe.handley@postgrad.umist.ac.uk