Re: Vail Reply to Comments on PLS

Dear Kurt Fuqua,

The VBWG discussed your reply comments ([1]) sent after our
proposed resolutions ([2]) on your original requests ([3]). 

I'd like to thank you for the time you spent on clearly explaining
each single point of your requests. This was very useful to
have a clear insight of the details and implications of your
requests and replies.

As I told you PLS 1.0 is in an advanced stage in the 
Recommendation Track. It is a second Last Call Working
Draft and we are mainly working to add clarifications,
therefore we intend to defer new requests unless very major
issues are found in the current specification. To defer
a request is a way to acknowledge its importance and
to track it for future evolutions of the specification.

If VAIL Systems decides to join W3C and Voice Browser
working group, you can be part of the evolution of the
PLS specification. We will appreciate it and this will
give you the opportunity to actively contribute to
the standardization process.

After your reply we updated the resolutions on your five
requests (see below).

Please indicate by email whether you are satisfied
with the VBWG's resolutions, whether you think there
is need for further clarifications, or whether you
wish to register an objections. If we don't see
a reply to this email by 8 June 2007, we will consider
the resolutions implicitly accepted.

Many thanks for your helpful contribution,

Paolo Baggia, editor PLS specification.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-voice/2007JanMar/0066.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-voice/2007JanMar/0056.html
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-voice/2006OctDec/0054.html 

================================================================
Issue R106-1 (Clarification / Typo / Editorial) 

*** NEW Resolution: Deferred

We understand your request to be able to indicate whether an
IPA pronunciation is intended to be phonemic or phonetic.
We acknowledge that its resolution might require to extend
PLS specification.

The IPA phonetic alphabet allows the user to specify both
detailed (allophones) or broad (phonemes) transcriptions, so
it is open to diverse uses. In the meantime SSML 1.1 specification
is working on a number of related issues, for instance the
creation of alternate pronunciation alphabet to be registered as
standard alphabets, and specifically to address issues that
are related to internationalize SSML.

We think it would be better to address your request
in a future release of PLS specification to be able to address
it in conjunction with and by leveraging on the results of SSML 1.1
definition.

================================================================
Issue R106-2 (Feature Request) 

*** Resolution: Deferred

Your proposal to add a phonemic and graphemic key to allow
the implementation of integrity checks is very interesting
but it was judged to be an advanced feature. It is currently
outside the high priority features to be addressed in the
requirement document of PLS [1].

We propose to address it in a future version of PLS
language. For PLS 1.0, there are elements like Metadata
(or Meta), see sections 4.2 [2] and 4.3 [3], that might be
used to experiment the use of these consistency keys, even if
the PLS language doesn't include them directly in the specification.

If you think that an informative note might be added in the
current specification, we suggest you to make a proposal
to be reviewed by the VBWG.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-lexicon-reqs-20041029/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-pronunciation-lexicon-20061026/#S4.2
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-pronunciation-lexicon-20061026/#S4.3

================================================================
Issue R106-3 (Clarification / Typo / Editorial) 

*** NEW Resolution: Accepted

We better understand your request to add an informative note
in Section 2 [1] to point out that in Appendix 2 on "Handbook
of the International Phonetic Association", Cambridge Univ. Press
in Table 3-6 there is a description of equivalence of IPA
symbols, symbols that are not IPA usage, or which were once
recommended but are no longer recommended. The user of PLS
should be made aware of that.

We accept your request and we gently ask you to propose
the text for the informative note, otherwise we will draft
the note in the spirit of the text above.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-pronunciation-lexicon-20061026/#S2

================================================================
Issue R106-4 (Clarification / Typo / Editorial) 

*** Resolution: Accepted (w/modifications)

You recommended us to adopt the normalization guidelines from
SLAPI which are here:

1) No modifier should be used in a phoneme symbol which does 
   not constitute a phonemic contrast for the phoneme in that language.

2) When a phoneme is phonetically rendered in allophones involving
   different base symbols, the symbol chosen to represent the phoneme
   should be the one from which the others are arguably derived
   by phonological rule.

3) The phoneme symbol must be unique within the particular language.

Our resolution was to consider the addition of an informative
note, but instead of including the guidelines we would prefer to
add a reference to the SLAPI documentation.
An alternative resolution might be to reference similar
guidelines from the IPA Handbook, which is already cited
by the specification, but we were unable to find them
in the IPA Handbook.

If you are able to provide us a stable reference
to either SLAPI guidelines or IPA Handbook ones,
we will be happy to add it in an informative note.

================================================================
Issue R106-5 (Feature Request) 

*** Resolution: Accepted (w/modifications)

As we mentioned in our previous answer, we partially accepted
your request by adding the "role" attribute in Section 4.4 [1].
This is the current device to specify POS in PLS. 

We believe that our group is not the right one to define a standard set
of values that works for all languages of the world. Instead we believe
the existing mechanism, which allows a reference to an external POS
list, is more flexible and permits reference to standards created by
groups who are expert in this area.
We may revisit this issue for a future version of PLS 
specification and after the definition of SSML 1.1 specification
to take care of requirements arising from that internationalization
activity on SSML 1.1.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-pronunciation-lexicon-20061026/#S4.4
================================================================


Gruppo Telecom Italia - Direzione e coordinamento di Telecom Italia S.p.A.

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Received on Wednesday, 23 May 2007 10:21:42 UTC