----------------------------------------------------------- Description of the CallHome telephone speech and transcript corpus for Japanese ----------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS 1. Summary abstract 2. Data acquisition 3. Data verification 4. Speaker demographics 5. Word segmentation 6. Data transcription - General 6.A. Data transcription - Japanese-specific 6.B. Japanese transcription symbol table ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Summary abstract The CallHome Japanese corpus of telephone speech was collected and transcribed by the Linguistic Data Consortium primarily in support of the project on Large Vocabulary Conversational Speech Recognition (LVCSR), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. This release of the CallHome Japanese corpus consists of 120 unscripted telephone conversations between native speakers of Japanese. The transcripts cover a contiguous 5 or 10 minute segment (see section 2 below) taken from a recorded conversation lasting up to 30 minutes. All speakers were aware that they were being recorded. They were given no guidelines concerning what they should talk about. Once a caller was recruited to participate, he/she was given a free choice of whom to call. Most participants called family members or close friends overseas. All calls originated in North America. The distribution of call destinations can be found in the file "spkrinfo.tbl". The transcripts are timestamped by speaker turn for alignment with the speech signal, and are provided in standard orthography. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Data acquisition Speakers were solicited by the LDC to participate in this telephone speech collection effort through personal contacts and the internet. A total of 200 call originators were found, each of whom placed a telephone call via a toll-free robot operator maintained originally by Rutgers University, and later by the LDC. Access to the robot operator was possible via a unique Personal Identification Number (PIN) issued by the recruiting staff at Rutgers or the LDC when the caller enrolled in the project. The participants were made aware that their telephone call would be recorded, as were the call recipients. The call was allowed only if both parties agreed to being recorded. Each caller was allowed to talk up to 30 minutes. Each caller was allowed to place only one telephone call. In all, 200 calls were transcribed. Of these, 80 have been designated as training calls, 20 as development test calls, and 100 as evaluation test calls. For each of the training and development test calls, a contiguous 10-minute region was selected for transcription; for the evaluation test calls, a 5-minute region was transcribed. For the present publication, only 20 of the evaluation test calls are being released; the remaining 80 test calls are being held in reserve for future LVCSR benchmark tests. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Data verification After a successful call was completed, a human audit of each telephone call was conducted to verify that the proper language was spoken, to check the quality of the recording, and to select and describe the region to be transcribed. The description of the transcribed region provides information about channel quality, number of speakers, their gender, and other attributes. The information from this audit may be found in the file "callinfo.tbl", and its contents are described in greater detail in "callinfo.doc". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Speaker demographics Information on speaker demographics can be found in the file spkrinfo.tbl, whose contents are described in the file spkrinfo.doc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Word Segmentation Segmentation of the Japanese transcripts was performed by hand at the LDC by Megumi Kobayashi and Masayo Kaneko. Word segmentation principles for Japanese were formulated in collaboration with LVCSR Callhome contractors, especially Yoshiko Ito and Paul Bamberg at Dragon Systems, and are as follows (note, however, that words tagged as dialect-specific, "dia", may be exceptions to the principles below): 1. Compounds A compound is treated as a unitary word (i.e., not segmented). 2. Conventionalized expressions Common expressions in conversational Japanese are treated as unitary. 3. noun+'suru' 'suru' is separated from the preceding noun except in cases where its phonological form changes in combination with the noun, i.e. +[suru] -> +[zuru]. Cases of noun+'zuru' are generated by the LDC transducer. 4. noun+'na' 'na' is separated from the preceding noun; nouns and 'na' are listed separately in the lexicon. However, all nouns that can take +na to become adjectives are tagged to indicate so. 5. Auxiliaries The following verb/adjective auxiliaries are treated as separate words. All seven verb stems that can combine with them are listed separately in the lexicon as well. deshita mashita masu nakereba taku takatta nakatta nai tai 6. Particles Particles are treated as separate words, except that multi- particle combinations are not segmented (e.g., 'wa', 'dewa'). 7. Honorifics Honorifics are treated as separate from the preceding word. 8. Rendaku Words undergoing rendaku, or sequential voicing, are treated as unsegmented compounds. 9. Count forms Irregular count forms, in which there is phonological interaction between the counter and what follows, are treated as unitary words and not segmented. 10. Contracted forms Contractions are not transcribed as unitary words, but rather (1) listed as separate words in the lexicon (e.g., "itte" and "oku" separately for "ittoku"), and (2) segmented as two words in the Callhome transcripts, followed by the contracted form and a tag in double brackets (see 6.A.2. below). The exception to this principle is dialect words (tagged as "dia"), which never occur in uncontracted form; they are transcribed in a way which most captures their productivity. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Data transcription - General The initial transcription was carried out by Texas Instruments; hand-segmentation, word standardization, kanji maximization, and other improvements were performed at the LDC. Below are the general transcription instructions given to transcribers by TI: CALLHOME TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS - General (TI) 1. Transcribe "verbatim", without correcting grammatical errors. 2. Do not try to imitate pronunciation details, including accents and mispronunciations. Write the words that you believe the speaker intended, using standard orthography. 3. Speaker identification: Label each speaker with A: or B: at the beginning of the line. Use A: for the lower speaker and B: for the upper speaker in the waveform. (A will be the person calling from the U.S., and B the person overseas.) If there is more than one speaker at one end of the conversation (e.g. the telephone is passed around, or multiple extensions in use), add numbers for each new speaker: B: (the first speaker on side B) B1: (a different speaker) B2: (yet another speaker) Try to label the speakers consistently. For example, if the first speaker returns, use "B:" again. 4. Speaker turns: Begin each speaker turn on a new line. Do not put carriage returns within a speaker line. (Don't worry if the screen shows a break in the middle of a word.) Each speaker turn begins and ends with a pause. That is, each continuous stretch of speech is transcribed as one turn. Any simultaneous speech on the other channel is transcribed separately, after the current turn is completed. Example: (x indicates speech, - indicates silence) channel B: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx---------xxxxxxxxx-- channel A: -------xxx-----xxx-----xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-------- time 0 1 2 3 4 5 sequence of turns in the transcription (times are not exact): 0.1 3.1 B: 1.0 1.3 A: 2.0 2.3 A: 3.0 5.0 A: 4.6 5.9 B: A "turn" consisting entirely of noise is transcribed only if it is a vocal tract noise from the talker (laugh, cough, etc.) - see 7 below. Channel noise is NOT transcribed. 5. Simultaneous speech on the same channel: If two people are speaking on the same channel (an extension phone or a speaker phone), and if they speak simultaneously, put pound signs # around the words spoken simultaneously. Example: B: #Oh, how interesting.# B1: #That's good news.# If only part of the utterance is simultaneous, mark only the part that is simultaneous, but transcribe the entire utterance as one turn. Put the other speaker's utterance on the next line, with its times. Example: 10.5 12.5 B: Well, I agree with you. #I think# you're right. 11.5 12.0 B1: #Oh yes, yes.# Note that # is used only for simultaneous speech on the same channel. Simultaneous speech on different channels is identifiable as such by reference to the time marks. 6. Partial words: If a speaker does not finish a word, write as much as you heard and end it with a hyphen. Put a space after the hyphen, but no space before it. 7. Non-speech sounds: a) Sounds made by the talker: When the participants in the conversation make sounds that are not speech, indicate them using a label between braces, for example: {cough} {laugh} Example: A: Oh, that's funny. {laugh} {cough} Excuse me, I have a cold. If the talker makes one of these sounds as an entire turn, transcribe it and show the times, for example: 340.0 342.0 A: {laugh} b) Other sounds: Mark other sounds using brackets [ ]. This includes background noises, background speech, and noises on the line. Mark these sounds only when they are clearly audible and about as loud as the speech. If they are hard to hear, or quieter than the speech, then ignore them. Also, do not transcribe noises that occur when no one on that channel is speaking, even if the noises are loud and clear. For example, if B is speaking and there is a loud noise on channel A (which is not made by speaker A), do not transcribe it. Examples: A clearly audible noise occurs during speech: A: Yes [noise]. If the event being described lasts longer than a few words, then indicate the beginning in braces [ ], and the end in braces with a "/", [/ ]. For intermittent sounds, mark the beginning and end of the intermittent occurrence of the sound - not the beginning and end of each individual occurrence. Example: A: Well, it all depends, uh, on, you know, [baby crying] how the family reacts. I mean, it can be a positive or a negative thing, you know? B: Yes, you're right. A: So it's difficult to say what's best sometimes. [/baby crying] Note: Be sure to mark the end on the channel where it occurred (A, in the example above). If the noise ends while the other speaker is talking, mark it at the end of the turn of the speaker on the same channel. For example, if the baby stops crying while B is talking: A: Well, it all depends, uh, on, you know, [baby crying] how the family reacts. I mean, it can be a positive or a negative thing, you know? [/baby crying] B: Yes, you're right. A: So it's difficult to say what's best sometimes. 8. Speech to someone in the background: If the speaker talks to someone in the background, put the speech between double slash marks. Examples: A: Just a minute. // Mary, please bring me a pencil. // A: Sm //una llamada de// ?quieres hablar un poquito con tu papa? 9. When a word or phrase is not clear, type double parentheses (( )) around what you think you hear. If there is no way to tell what the speaker said, leave one blank space between the double parentheses, indicating speech has been left out because it was unintelligible. Examples: A: So when I finally did ((take up)) the violin, I progressed pretty quickly in the beginning. B: Of course, that was in college which was a long time ago, so (( )) I remember. 10. Comments To put a comment in the transcription, use double square brackets: [[comment]] Comments should be used very sparingly - only when there is no other way to indicate some unusual event. Notations describing noises should use single brackets, not double brackets (see #7). Examples of comments: [[speaker is singing]] [[speaker imitates a little child]] [[previous word is exceptionally prolonged]] Comments may be used to indicate the reason for unintelligible speech. Example: (( )) [[distortion]] However, use such comments sparingly. If there is consistent distortion, note it on the conversation summary sheet and do NOT put it in the transcription every time. The same is true for mumbling, rapid speech, etc. In other words, use comments only for unusual cases. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.A. Data transcription - Japanese-specific 1. Orthography i. Kanji. Kanji representations have been maximized in the transcripts. However, when a kanji representation appeared out of date, the word was rendered in hiragana. Japanese speech and punctuation should be transcribed in EUC; all other information is in ASCII. ii. Proper names. Well-known names (e.g. authors, celebrities) are rendered in the kanji by which they are known. For less well-known names, the first name is given in hiragana and the last name in the most commonly used kanji. iii. Auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs are represented in hiragana in principle (e.g.,existential iru/aru, morau, nai, kuru/iku, etc.); however when they are acting as main verbs, they may be represented in kanji (e.g.,kuru/iku), unless it is archaic. iv. Numbers. Numbers are represented in kanji. v. English. English alphabet symbols are retained (e.g., U C L A). 2. Spelling In principle, spelling variants are regularized so that there is only one representation: either kanji (katakana) or hiragana. Homonyms, however, inevitably remain. Non-contrastive variable length has been eliminated as much as possible in order to eliminate spelling variants. Colloquial, contracted, and dialect-specific words and expressions have been rendered in standardized, uncontracted form; however, whenever the transcribers at TI had originally provided a more phonetic-based representation, that version was retained and placed in double brackets with a tag, and the standard or uncontracted form was marked with the symbol "@", e.g.: @standard[[phonetic, dia]] @uncontracted words[[contracted, con]] This is so that the phonetic information, which may be useful for modelling pronunciation, is retained. The tags used are: dia dialect word col colloquial word con contracted form ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.B. Japanese transcription symbol table {text} sound made by the talker {laugh} {cough} {sneeze} {breath} [text] sound not made by the talker (background or channel) [distortion] [background noise] [buzz] [/text] end of continuous or intermittent sound not made by the talker (beginning marked with previous [text]) [[text]] comment on preceding or following text @text [[text, tag]] the word following "@" is the standardized headword; the word in double brackets [[ ]] is the pronunciation-based colloquial or dialect word, or contractions as originally transcribed by TI. The words following "@" are almost all in the lexicon (the ones that aren't are excluded because no standardized representation exists); the words in double brackets are mostly excluded from the lexicon. The tags include: dia dialect word con contraction col colloquial expression/spelling ((text)) unintelligible; text is best guess at transcription ((coffee klatch)) (( )) unintelligible; can't even guess text (( )) speech in another language ? indicates unrecognized language; (( )) indicates untranscribable speech text= partial word absolu= #text# simultaneous speech on the same channel (simultaneous speech on different channels is not explicitly marked, but is identifiable as such by reference to time marks) //text// aside (talker addressing someone in background) //quit it, I'm talking to your sister!// +text+ "Japanized" foreign word or phrase, i.e., foreign word or phrase assimilated to Japanese phonology. Used for idiosyncratic cases; loan words in customary usage are not marked. **text** idiosyncratic word, not in common use, or a mis- pronunciation; not included in lexicon. **poodle-ish** %text This symbol flags non-lexemes, which are general hesitation sounds. %mm %uh -----------------------------------------------------------------------