1. A method for producing subunit speech patterns comprising the steps of: storing a plurality of reference speech pattern templates each comprising a time frame sequence of acoustic feature signals representative of a prescribed spoken reference speech pattern; storing a set of signals each representative of the time of occurrence of at least one predetermined subunit in the reference acoustic feature signal sequence for each reference speech pattern; analyzing an utterance of one of said stored reference speech patterns to generate a time frame sequence of acoustic feature signals representative of the utterance; generating signals representative of the time alignment of said utterance feature signal sequence and said stored reference speech pattern feature signal sequence; and determining the sequence of utterance feature signals corresponding to the predetermined subunit in said stored reference speech pattern template responsive to the time alignment signals and said reference subunit time of occurrence representative signals.