Speakup does not pass the punctuation level to the synthesis

[gcasse]

The punctuation characters associated to A_PUNC in chartab are not replaced by a space (32) by Speakup even if the punctuation level = 0 (observed in kernel 5.16.11).

This can be mitigated by associating the relevant characters to PUNC instead.

For example, the simple quote character ' (39) is let unmodified by Speakup.
Once the following command lines are launched as root, the simple quote character is correctly:

• replaced by a space character if punctuation level < 3
• let unmodified if punctuation level = 3

CHARTAB=/sys/accessibility/speakup/i18n/chartab
grep A_PUNC $CHARTAB | while read line; do echo ${line%A_PUNC}PUNC > $CHARTAB; done

This has been checked under Slint using speechd-up and confirmed by another user (Debian 11, console based environment, csh).

[sthibaul]

Hello,

Well, yes, AFAIK speakup does not perform the punctuation filtering by itself, it always delegates it to the devices. In espeakup, for instance, when receiving the \x01%db command, it calls espeak_SetParameter(espeakPUNCTUATION) to delegate the setting to the eventual synthesis.

Samuel

[sthibaul]

Mmmm, actually there is some punctuation-related processing called spk_punc_mask, the code doesn't really document how that's supposed to be interacting with the backend support for punctuation...

[sthibaul]

But I believe to get the user-expected behavior, the backend should really interpret the \x01%db command to set the punctuation level inside the synthesis, that's what all speakup drivers do.

[sthibaul]

replaced by a space character if punctuation level < 3

Thinking again how punctuation works, we definitely do not want this: AIUI, we have to pass this kind of character to the eventual synthesis, so that the synthesis knows which prosody etc. it should use. It's really up to the eventual synthesis to decide whether it should speak out e.g. exclamation point or not, and in both case it needs to receive the character, so that it takes it into account for the prosody, be it spoken out or not.

[gcasse]

Hello,

I also agree but it is not what I observed using speechd-up (via /var/log/speechd-up.log, log level at 5).
Initially the b command is interpreted as 'punctuation all' and send the relevant command to speech-dispatcher.
Then whichever the pressed key (speakupkey + F9 or F10), no 'b' command is received by speechd-up, instead the punctuation characters appeared replaced by speakup itself.

Here is what was logged by speechd-up (after replacing A_PUNC by PUNC in chartab)
Conditions in the console:

• user prompt: user1@slint:~$
• test: lauch command line
  echo "'hello' ? ? "

*** Punctuation level set to 2, speakup appears to replace some punctuation character by space
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 12 : (punclevel 2 )
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: text: |punclevel 2 12|
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: [speaking]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: Text before recoding: |punclevel 2 |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |punclevel 2 |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: Sending to speechd as text: |punclevel 2 |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:32 2022] speechd: ---
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 1 : (^X)
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: [stop]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 15 : (user1@slint $ )
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: text: |user1@slint $ 15|
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: [speaking]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Text before recoding: |user1@slint $ |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |user1@slint $ |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Sending to speechd as text: |user1@slint $ |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: ---
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 1 : (^X)
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: [stop]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 35 : (user1@slint $ echo hello )
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: text: |user1@slint $ echo hello 35|
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: [speaking]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Text before recoding: |user1@slint $ echo hello |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |user1@slint $ echo hello |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:34 2022] speechd: Sending to speechd as text: |user1@slint $ echo hello |

*** Punctuation level set to 3, all the punctuation characters are read by speechd-up
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:41 2022] speechd: text: |punclevel 3 12|
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:41 2022] speechd: [speaking]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:41 2022] speechd: Text before recoding: |punclevel 3 |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:41 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |punclevel 3 |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:41 2022] speechd: Sending to speechd as text: |punclevel 3 |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:41 2022] speechd: ---
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 1 : (^X)
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: [stop]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 15 : (user1@slint:~$ )
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: text: |user1@slint:~$ 15|
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: [speaking]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Text before recoding: |user1@slint:~$ |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |user1@slint:~$ |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Sending to speechd as text: |user1@slint:~$ |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: ---
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 1 : (^X)
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: [stop]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Main loop characters read = 35 : (user1@slint:~$ echo "'hello' ? ? " )
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: text: |user1@slint:~$ echo &quot;&apos;hello&apos; ? ? &quot; 35|
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: [speaking]
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Text before recoding: |user1@slint:~$ echo &quot;&apos;hello&apos; ? ? &quot; |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |user1@slint:~$ echo &quot;&apos;hello&apos; ? ? &quot; |
[Mon Aug 15 05:30:44 2022] speechd: Sending to speechd as text: |user1@slint:~$ echo &quot;&apos;hello&apos; ? ? &quot; |

[sthibaul]

I also agree but it is not what I observed using speechd-up

Oh, then that's a different story. AIUI it should really be receiving the b command, just like it receives pitch, rate, etc. commands.

[sthibaul]

spk_set_num_var indeed does set spk_punc_mask and does not care about notifying the synth, that's odd.

[sthibaul]

It seems that the confusion is even deeper: speechd-up takes 0 as "all", while espeakup takes 0 as "none" (because it blindly casts it into espeak_PUNCT_TYPE)
It looks like nobody every took to actually ask "what do these value represent", precisely because speakup already does the processing and doesn't update the level.

[sthibaul]

williamh/speechd-up#7

[sthibaul]

linux-speakup/espeakup#50

[sthibaul]

Could you check that this patch ec64d7a fixes telling your speechd-up installation the punctuation level? (note that you need fix williamh/speechd-up#7 to have it properly plugged to speech-dispatcher)

[gcasse]

Could you attach for quicker feedback the speechd-up.log file (debug level 5) corresponding to
echo "'hello' ? ? " at punctuation level 2 and then punctuation level 3 ?

[sthibaul]

Here are the results at different punctuation levels:
log.txt

Note that I have applied the speechd-up fix, but compiled it against an old speech-dispatcher which didn't have the "most" level, thus why the "most"-then-"some" log.

[sthibaul]

So as expected the question marks are always transmitted, so that the eventual synthesis behind speech-dispatcher can always perform the prosody. But with the punctuation level set with [0-3]b, it will know how much punctuation to pronounce.

[gcasse]

Thank you, receiving the punctuation level is helpful.
Would it be possible to avoid these supplementary white spaces when level = 3?

echo "'hello' ? ? "
[...]
[Sun Aug 21 19:23:59 2022] speechd: Recoded text: |
&apos; hello &apos; ? ?

[sthibaul]

I guess these are meant to make sure that synthesizers do separate out the punctuation to speak it. I however have no idea where in the speakup code that's getting introduced.