___________________________________ Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper Presented at the 110th Convention 2001 May 12–15 Amsterdam, The Netherlands This convention paper has been reproduced from the author's advance manuscript, without editing, corrections, or consideration by the Review Board. The AES takes no responsibility for the contents. Additional papers may be obtained by sending request and remittance to Audio Engineering Society, 60 East 42 nd Street, New York, New York 10165-2520, USA; also see www.aes.org. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this paper, or any portion thereof, is not permitted without direct permission from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. ___________________________________ Synthesising Prosody with Variable Resolution Eduardo Reck Miranda SONY Computer Science Laboratory Paris 6 rue Amyot, Paris, 75005, France miranda@csl.sony.fr - http://www.csl.sony.fr ABSTRACT This paper presents a technique for synthesising prosody based upon information extracted from spoken utterances. We are interested in designing systems that learn how to speak autonomously, by interacting with humans. Our motivation for an in-depth investigation on prosody is prompted by the fact that infants seem to have acute prosodic listening during the first months of life. We presume that any system aimed at learning some form of speaking skills should display this fundamental capacity. This paper addresses two fundamental components for the development of such systems: prosody listening and prosody production. It begins with a brief introduction to the problem within the context of our research objectives. Then it introduces the system and presents some commented examples. The paper concludes with final remarks and a brief discussion on future developments.