# EME-TTS: Unlocking the Emphasis and Emotion Link in Speech Synthesis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12015 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.12015/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 16 Jul 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [EmoInstruct-TTS: Dual-Path Instruction-Guided Emotional Speech Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20650/) (2026)
- [Do Speech Emphasis Models Generalize across Languages and Emotions?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.27717/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, emotional Text-to-Speech (TTS) synthesis and emphasis-controllable speech synthesis have advanced significantly. However, their interaction remains underexplored. We propose Emphasis Meets Emotion TTS (EME-TTS), a novel framework designed to address two key research questions: (1) how to effectively utilize emphasis to enhance the expressiveness of emotional speech, and (2) how to maintain the perceptual clarity and stability of target emphasis across different emotions. EME-TTS employs weakly supervised learning with emphasis pseudo-labels and variance-based emphasis features. Additionally, the proposed Emphasis Perception Enhancement (EPE) block enhances the interaction between emotional signals and emphasis positions. Experimental results show that EME-TTS, when combined with large language models for emphasis position prediction, enables more natural emotional speech synthesis while preserving stable and distinguishable target emphasis across emotions. Synthesized samples are available on-line.