SIOD ERROR: not a number

Question

Some times when i use (SayText " <some sentence >") it gives the following error SIOD ERROR: not a number. For example

festival> (SayText "ਮੇਰਾ ਨਾਮ")      means (SayText"mera naam")
SIOD ERROR: not a number 
festival> (SayText " ਨਾਮ ")  
SIOD ERROR: not a number 
festival> (SayText "ਨਾਮ")

and when i backtraced it

SIOD ERROR: not a number 
festival> (set_backtrace t)
t
festival> (SayText "ਨਾਮ")  
SIOD ERROR: not a number 
BACKTRACE:
   0: (#<SUBR(5) Classic_Word> (quote #<Utterance 0xaddeb8b8>))
   1: (apply_method (quote Word_Method) utt)
   2: (Word utt)
   3: (let-internal
    (type)
    ((utt.type utt))
    ...)
   4: (utt.synth (eval (list (quote Utterance) (quote Text) text)))
   5: (SayText "ਨਾਮ")

Answer 1

If you look on FT_Classic_Word_Utt method in festival sources you'll see it tries to get stress as integer number based on the data from the dictionary. Most likely this problematic word has letters instead of stress in the lexicon or somewhere else where you define word pronunciation.

You could trace FT_Classic_Word_Utt with gdb as well as study the expansion of the words like ਨਾਮ to see why the stress is not specified correctly.