Ralf's German dictionary contains entries with a glottal stop. Here is an example:
<lexeme role="Substantiv">
<grapheme>Immobilieneuphorie</grapheme>
<phoneme>ʔɪmoːbiːliːənɔɪ̯foːʀiː</phoneme>
</lexeme>
When you import the dictionary into simon, this word is displayed as follows:
The SAMPA transcription gls I m o: b i: l i: @ n OI f o: R i: contains the glottal stop. Does this improve the recognition result?
Take a look into the Wikipedia:
“In the northern varieties, [ʔ] occurs before word stems with initial vowel. It is not considered a phoneme, but an optional boundary mark of word stems.”
So maybe the glottal stop is not a phoneme but a boundary mark? Maybe it would be better to create a new IPA “phoneme” /ʔɪ/ – or to be more specific: /ʔ͡ɪ/? This “phoneme” doesn’t exist, but if the glottal stop is just a boundary mark, I think about a solution for this issue.
Are there any test results available? I don’t know how HTK does handle the glottal stop. Maybe it is a good decision to treat the glottal stop as phoneme. Maybe it would be better to introduce “new” phonemes? There could be a “normal” /ɪ/ phoneme, and a “new” /ʔ͡ɪ/ phoneme.
I am just thinking out loud. It is great that simon imports the glottal stop. I would like to know: does this improve the recognition results? I haven’t tested it.
