13. A method for processing a spoken utterance consisting of a sequence of phonemes said method comprising the steps of: detecting the frequency distribution of the energy of the utterance for a plurality of time intervals within the duration of a single phoneme; separating each frequency distribution into a plurality of frequency bandwidths; deriving at least one energy spectrum representing the energy present in the phoneme as a function of frequency for a plurality of frequency distributions coverting a sequency of time intervals; and deriving at least a pair of sweep spectra representing the change in energy present in the phoneme from one frequency to another as a function of time for a plurality of frequency distributions, whereby the spoken phoneme can be represented by the energy spectrum and the sweep spectra to facilitate speech recognition.
13. A method for processing a spoken utterance consisting of a sequence of phonemes said method comprising the steps of: detecting the frequency distribution of the energy of the utterance for a plurality of time intervals within the duration of a single phoneme; separating each frequency distribution into a plurality of frequency bandwidths; deriving at least one energy spectrum representing the energy present in the phoneme as a function of frequency for a plurality of frequency distributions coverting a sequency of time intervals; and deriving at least a pair of sweep spectra representing the change in energy present in the phoneme from one frequency to another as a function of time for a plurality of frequency distributions, whereby the spoken phoneme can be represented by the energy spectrum and the sweep spectra to facilitate speech recognition. 14. The method of claim 13 and additionally comprising the step of separating each frequency distribution into a plurality of frequency bandwidths prior to said deriving steps.