Ming-yi TsaiFu-Chiang ChouLIN-SHAN LEE2018-09-102018-09-102001-09http://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/294425https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85009126850&partnerID=40&md5=07d96bd55e692b5f93636869dfe6107eChinese language has quite different characteristic structures from those of Hnglish. I here are at least word, character, syllable. Initial-Final levels in Chinese, each carrying different levels of information vv ith complicated correlations among them. In this paper, we investigate the dependency of pronunciation variation in conversational Mandarin speech on these different levels under various contextual conditions considering the structural features of the language. I he influence of speaking rate and word frequency on such pronunciation variation is also analyzed. Different pruning methods, for including pronunciation variation in speech recognition were also evaluated, and the experimental results showed that improved accuracy is obtainable if the characteristics of the pronunciation variation found in the analysis can be properlv taken into account. All discussions here are based on tests with the LDC Mandarin Call Home corpus.Linguistics; Speech recognition; Chinese language; Mandarin Chinese; Pronunciation variation; Pruning methods; Speaking rate; Structural feature; Word frequencies; Speech communicationconference paper2-s2.0-85009126850