6. The system as defined by claim 1 wherein said means for generating said second feature signal includes means responsive to said input for generating an indication of the presence of a voiced phonetic characteristic or an unvoiced noise-like consonant characteristic in said input.
1. In an apparatus which receives acoustic input, said input including words spoken in isolation, and performs recognition functions on said words, said apparatus including means for generating feature signals indicative of feature characteristics in the received input and means for comparing the feature signals which occur during determined time boundaries with stored features corresponding to words in a vocabulary; an improved system for detecting word boundaries, comprising: (a) means responsive to said input for generating a first feature signal indicative of the presence of speech-like sounds which meet a first selection criterion; (b) means for storing the feature signals which occur during the presence of said first feature signal; (c) means responsive to said input for generating a second feature signal indicative of the presence of speech-like sounds which meet a second selection criterion; and (d) means for determining the substantially last occurrence of said second feature signal among the stored feature signals, the end boundary of an input spoken word being determined as a function of said last occurrence.