SPEECH SYNTHESIS UNIT SELECTION

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for selecting units for speech synthesis. One of the methods includes determining a sequence of text units that each represent a respective portion of text for speech synthesis; and determining multiple paths of speech units that each represent the sequence of text units by selecting a first speech unit that includes speech synthesis data representing a first text unit; selecting multiple second speech units including speech synthesis data representing a second text unit based on (i) a join cost to concatenate the second speech unit with a first speech unit and (ii) a target cost indicating a degree that the second speech unit corresponds to the second text unit; and defining paths from the selected first speech unit to each of the multiple second speech units to include in the multiple paths of speech units.