An arrangement is provided for text to speech processing based on linguistic prosodic models. Linguistic prosodic models (250) are established to characterize different linguistic prosodic characteristics. When an input (205) text is received, a target unit sequence (230) is generated with a linguistic target (230) that annotates target unit in the target unit sequence (230) with a plurality of linguistic prosodic characteristics so that speech synthesized (275) in accordance with the target unit sequence (230) and the linguistic target (230) has certain desired prosodic properties. A unit sequence (265) is selected in accordance with the target unit sequence (230) and the linguistic target (230) based on joint cost information (420, 430, 440) evaluated using established linguistic prosodic models (250). The selected unit sequence (265) is used to produce synthesized speech (275) corresponding to the input text (205).
LINGUISTIC PROSODIC MODEL-BASED TEXT TO SPEECH