10. A method for recognizing an utterance as one of a plurality of reference patterns according to claim 9 wherein: the step of producing said set of likelihood representative signals in each speech pattern frame processing interval comprises: generating a set of signals representative of the probability that the reference template Markov model for the utterance speech pattern portion up to the current frame is in each of the reference template Markov model states responsive to the first and second type signals.
12. A method for recognizing an utterance as one of a plurality of reference patterns according to claim 10 wherein: the step of storing the set of K prescribed feature signals comprises storing K linear predictive feature prototype signals covering the range of acoustic features of the frame sequence of acoustic feature signals of the reference patterns; and the step of forming a sequence of acoustic feature signals representative of the utterance speech pattern comprises forming a sequence of linear predictive feature signals representative of the utterance speech pattern.