Phonemic Similarity Metrics to Compare Pronunciation Methods

As grapheme­to­phoneme methods proliferate, their careful evaluation becomes increasingly important. This paper ex­ plores a variety of metrics to compare the automatic pronunci­ ation methods of three freely­available grapheme­to­phoneme packages on a large dictionary. Two metrics, presented here for the first time, rely upon a novel weighted phonemic substi­ tution matrix constructed from substitution frequencies in a collection of trusted alternate pronunciations. These new met­ rics are sensitive to the degree of mutability among phonemes. An alignment tool uses this matrix to compare phoneme sub­ stitutions between pairs of pronunciations.